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A review by bethpeninger
Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets by Luke Dittrich
5.0
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for this reader's copy. In exchange, I am providing an honest review.
This was fascinating. Using Patient H.M. as the springboard for a deep dive into the history of lobotomies, Luke Dittrich has offered readers a very thorough look into the evolution of psychosurgery. In the process of his research, Dittrich discovers a family secret that makes a lot of sense of family history once known.
Why Patient H.M.? He passed away in 2008 and it was only then that his identity was revealed to the world. Henry Gustav Molaison was the most studied human in the world because of his brain. The short story is he was hit by a car as a kid and sustained a brain injury that caused him epileptic seizures which greatly affected his life as he had several a day. In 1953 W.B. Scoville offered to perform a lobotomy on him in the hopes it would cease the seizures. It didn't but what it did do is cause severe anterograde amnesia and moderate retrograde amnesia. Henry, dubbed Patient H.M. to protect his anonymity, became the focus of study for all of psychology until his death in 2008...and even then, his brain continued to be studied and still does to this day.
Dittrich has a connection, of sorts, to the story of Patient H.M. and the history of lobotomies. His grandfather was W.B. Scoville. That wasn't the secret Dittrich uncovered, however, that made sense of family history. The secret he uncovered had to do with his grandmother's experiences with mental illness. Spoiler Alert: Given what his grandfather did for a living, perhaps you can guess - as I did - what that secret was/is. But Dittrich cannot prove the heresy about what his grandfather did to his grandmother as there are no physical records confirming it. (For obvious reasons. That was a huge breach of ethics and morality to give your own wife a lobotomy.) Anyway, that wasn't the focus of the book at large.
Luke Dittrich took 6 years to write this book. He did due diligence in meeting with as many people as he could who have first-person knowledge of the early days of lobotomies and of working with people like his grandfather. He did deep research into the history of the brain and our fascination with it. He didn't try to frame his grandfather in a good light or protect any reputation that still exists for Scoville. Dittrich just simply told the story which included Scoville and happened to be his grandfather. What I'm saying is that Dittrich made it clear he had nothing to gain or lose by the story he crafted and put out there for the world to read. He's been criticized by MIT for his writing as it concerns Suzanne Corkin, a highly regarded neuroscientist who spent the bulk of her career on Patient H.M. After reading the book and the parts that include her part in the story of Patient H.M. and reading MIT's defense of her I'm Team Luke. His introduction of her into the larger story made me uneasy and as time progressed and by the end of Henry's life, it was clear Corkin was beyond interested in Patient H.M., she was obsessed in very unhealthy ways. It's a shame MIT supported that unhealthy attachment. As her mentor, Brenda Milner said to Dittrich, it was time to move on from Patient H.M., there are other people and other avenues to explore. She had a healthy perspective of what Patient H.M. offered her personal career goals. It doesn't seem Corkin did. Anyway. That was a tangent.
As someone who is fascinated by the brain and its inner workings but will never go beyond the surface study of it, I loved this book because it gave me insight and knowledge. It also disgusted me as the whole trend of lobotomies was ultimately very damaging to individuals and families. It was used as a way to force women into "better behavior" and to treat people who had homosexual tendencies. Those are two groups of people against which lobotomy was used as a weapon. Disgusting.
Thanks to Luke Dittrich for the years of research and study he put into writing this very interesting and informative book.
This was fascinating. Using Patient H.M. as the springboard for a deep dive into the history of lobotomies, Luke Dittrich has offered readers a very thorough look into the evolution of psychosurgery. In the process of his research, Dittrich discovers a family secret that makes a lot of sense of family history once known.
Why Patient H.M.? He passed away in 2008 and it was only then that his identity was revealed to the world. Henry Gustav Molaison was the most studied human in the world because of his brain. The short story is he was hit by a car as a kid and sustained a brain injury that caused him epileptic seizures which greatly affected his life as he had several a day. In 1953 W.B. Scoville offered to perform a lobotomy on him in the hopes it would cease the seizures. It didn't but what it did do is cause severe anterograde amnesia and moderate retrograde amnesia. Henry, dubbed Patient H.M. to protect his anonymity, became the focus of study for all of psychology until his death in 2008...and even then, his brain continued to be studied and still does to this day.
Dittrich has a connection, of sorts, to the story of Patient H.M. and the history of lobotomies. His grandfather was W.B. Scoville. That wasn't the secret Dittrich uncovered, however, that made sense of family history. The secret he uncovered had to do with his grandmother's experiences with mental illness. Spoiler Alert: Given what his grandfather did for a living, perhaps you can guess - as I did - what that secret was/is. But Dittrich cannot prove the heresy about what his grandfather did to his grandmother as there are no physical records confirming it. (For obvious reasons. That was a huge breach of ethics and morality to give your own wife a lobotomy.) Anyway, that wasn't the focus of the book at large.
Luke Dittrich took 6 years to write this book. He did due diligence in meeting with as many people as he could who have first-person knowledge of the early days of lobotomies and of working with people like his grandfather. He did deep research into the history of the brain and our fascination with it. He didn't try to frame his grandfather in a good light or protect any reputation that still exists for Scoville. Dittrich just simply told the story which included Scoville and happened to be his grandfather. What I'm saying is that Dittrich made it clear he had nothing to gain or lose by the story he crafted and put out there for the world to read. He's been criticized by MIT for his writing as it concerns Suzanne Corkin, a highly regarded neuroscientist who spent the bulk of her career on Patient H.M. After reading the book and the parts that include her part in the story of Patient H.M. and reading MIT's defense of her I'm Team Luke. His introduction of her into the larger story made me uneasy and as time progressed and by the end of Henry's life, it was clear Corkin was beyond interested in Patient H.M., she was obsessed in very unhealthy ways. It's a shame MIT supported that unhealthy attachment. As her mentor, Brenda Milner said to Dittrich, it was time to move on from Patient H.M., there are other people and other avenues to explore. She had a healthy perspective of what Patient H.M. offered her personal career goals. It doesn't seem Corkin did. Anyway. That was a tangent.
As someone who is fascinated by the brain and its inner workings but will never go beyond the surface study of it, I loved this book because it gave me insight and knowledge. It also disgusted me as the whole trend of lobotomies was ultimately very damaging to individuals and families. It was used as a way to force women into "better behavior" and to treat people who had homosexual tendencies. Those are two groups of people against which lobotomy was used as a weapon. Disgusting.
Thanks to Luke Dittrich for the years of research and study he put into writing this very interesting and informative book.