Minds Behind the Brain: A history of the pioneers and their discoveries

Now in a more affordable paperback version! A best seller! Attractively illustrated with over a hundred halftones and drawings, this volume presents a series of vibrant profiles that trace the evolution of our knowledge about the brain. Beginning almost 5000 years ago, with the ancient Egyptian study of "the marrow of the skull," Stanley Finger takes us on a fascinating journey from the classical world of Hippocrates, to the time of Descartes and the era of Broca and Ramon y Cajal, to modern researchers such as Sperry. Here is a truly remarkable cast of characters. We meet Galen, a man of titanic ego and abrasive disposition, whose teachings dominated medicine for a thousand years; Vesalius, a contemporary of Copernicus, who pushed our understanding of human anatomy to new heights; Otto Loewi, pioneer in neurotransmitters, who gave the Nazis his Nobel prize money and fled Austria for England; and Rita Levi-Montalcini, discoverer of nerve growth factor, who in war-torn Italy was forced to do her research in her bedroom. For each individual, Finger examines the philosophy, the tools, the books, and the ideas that brought new insights. Finger also looks at broader topics--how dependent are researchers on the work of others? What makes the time ripe for discovery? And what role does chance or serendipity play? And he includes many fascinating background figures as well, from Leonardo da Vinci and Emanuel Swedenborg to Karl August Weinhold--who claimed to have reanimated a dead cat by filling its skull with silver and zinc--and Mary Shelley, whose Frankenstein was inspired by such experiments. Wide ranging in scope, imbued with an infectious spirit of adventure, here are vivid portraits of giants in the field of neuroscience--remarkable individuals who found new ways to think about the machinery of the mind.

Table of Contents:
Preface 1: Introduction: A Voyage Across Time 2: An Ancient Egyptian Physician: The Dawn of Neurology 3: Hippocrates: The Brain as the Organ of the Mind 4: Galen: The Birth of Experimentation 5: Andreas Vesalius: The New "Human" Neuroanatomy 6: Rene Descartes: The Mind-Body Problem 7: Thomas Willis: The Functional Organization of the Brain 8: Luigi Galvani: Electricity and the Nerves 9: Franz Joseph Gall: The Cerebral Organs of Mind 10: Paul Broca: Cortical Localization and Cerebral Dominance 11: David Ferrier and Edward Hitzig: The Experimentalists Map the Cerebral Cortex 12: Jean-Martin Charcot: Clinical Neurology Comes of Age 13: Santiago Ramon Y Cajal: From Nerve Nets to Neuron Doctrine 14: Charles Scott Sherrington: The Integrated Nervous System 15: Edgar D. Adrian: Coding the Nervous System 16: Otto Loewi and Henry Dale: The Discovery of Neurotransmitters 17: Roger W. Sperry and Rita Levi-Montalcini: From Neural Growth to "Split Brains" 18: Pioneers and Discoveries in the Brain Sciences Notes Index

About the Author :
Stanley Finger is a leading historian of neuroscience, author of Origins of Neuroscience, senior editor of Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, and the first president of the International Society for the History of the Neurosciences. He is Professor of Psychology at Washington University, where he is in the Program in the Neurosciences as well as the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program. He lives in Creve Coeur, Missouri.

Review :
"Stanley Finger succeeds admirably in providing what students wanted to know about the 'real people' who pioneered Western knowledge of the brain. What has resulted is a most interesting and well-written account of how we have come to understand the brain and its workings."--Journal of History of Neurosciences "This reads like a well-written nonfiction book. It is richly illustrated with old pictures of the scientists and the object of their discoveries." --Doody's "This reads like a well-written nonfiction book. It is richly illustrated with old pictures of the scientists and the object of their discoveries." --Doody's "Minds Behind the Brain is a handy guide to understanding how much we've learned about ourselves and how much is left to know."--Chicago Tribune "One cannot help but be captivated and even enchanted by Finger's great storytelling. He combines narrative gifts with a wealth of background knowledge. This combination results in a clever weaving of the history of ideas among the biographical accounts of great scientists.... What makes a book great? Essentially, a great subject and a great writer combined. Finger's book is in that league."--J. van Gijn, M.D., The New England Journal of Medicine "[Finger] welcomingly goes beyond the norm for similar historical works by demonstrating how the written and spoken words of scientists can be misinterpreted. Less uncustomarily, he points out areas of research in which future discoveries stand to be made. So doing, he adds to his fine book's motivational value; careers might be started by reading it."--Booklist "A wide-ranging and detailed set of profiles reaching back to the distant past. Each chapter describes a figure or pair of figures whose ideas and treatments of the brain dramatically changed the scientific or medical landscape....It will please readers already interested in the history of science and curious about what generations of scientists past believed, guessed, or found out about the brain.."--Publisher's Weekly "Finger brings to life representative major figures in the history of brain research, showing how each grew up, thought, worked, and fit into the context of his or her time....he points out areas of research in which future discoveries stand to be made. So doing, he adds to his fine book's motivational value; careers might be started by reading it."--William Beatty, Booklist "Stanley Finger succeeds admirably in providing what students wanted to know about the 'real people' who pioneered Western knowledge of the brain. What has resulted is a most interesting and well-written account of how we have come to understand the brain and its workings."--Journal of History of Neurosciences