Medicine | FrogenYozurt.Com - Online Literature Magazine

The Undead: Organ Harvesting, the Ice-Water Test, Beating Heart Cadavers–How Medicine Is Blurring the Line Between Life and Death by Dick Teresi

On March 21, 2012, in Book Reviews, Health, Mind & Body, Nonfiction, Science, Social Studies, Technology, by Editor

Important and provocative, The Undead examines why even with the tools of advanced technology, what we think of as life and death, consciousness and nonconsciousness, is not exactly clear and how this problem has been further complicated by the business of organ harvesting.

Brain Bugs: How the Brain’s Flaws Shape Our Lives by Dean Buonomano

On July 15, 2011, in Book Reviews, Nonfiction, Science, by Editor

With its trillions of connections, the human brain is more beautiful and complex than anything we could ever build, but it’s far from perfect. Our memory is unreliable; we can’t multiply large sums in our heads; advertising manipulates our judgment; we tend to distrust people who are different from us; supernatural beliefs and superstitions are hard to shake; we prefer instant gratification to long-term gain; and what we presume to be rational decisions are often anything but.

Haiti After the Earthquake – A Gripping Recollection by Paul Farmer

On July 13, 2011, in Book Reviews, Nonfiction, by Editor

In this vivid narrative, Farmer describes the incredible suffering–and resilience–that he encountered in Haiti. Having worked in the country for nearly thirty years, he skillfully explores the social issues that made Haiti so vulnerable to the earthquake–the very issues that make it an “unnatural disaster.” Complementing his account are stories from other doctors, volunteers, and earthquake survivors.

An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted, and the Miracle Drug Cocaine by Howard Markel

On July 8, 2011, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, Nonfiction, by Editor

From acclaimed medical historian Howard Markel, author of When Germs Travel, the astonishing account of the years-long cocaine use of Sigmund Freud, young, ambitious neurologist, and William Halsted, the equally young, pathfinding surgeon. Markel writes of the physical and emotional damage caused by the then-heralded wonder drug, and how each man ultimately changed the world in spite of it—or because of it. One became the father of psychoanalysis; the other, of modern surgery.

The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years by Sonia Shah

On June 17, 2011, in Book Reviews, Nonfiction, Science, by Editor

Investigative journalist Shah maintains her signature pattern (Crude, 2004; The Body Hunters, 2006) here, exposing both the seemly and not-so-seemly aspects of the subject under review. As Shah demonstrates, when it comes to taming, never mind eradicating, malaria, the disease is cannily able to keep the ball in humankind’s court. Notwithstanding, people in tropical climes who live with its ubiquitous presence have over time come to uneasy terms with the fever.

Witness to an Extreme Century: A Memoir by Robert Jay Lifton

On June 13, 2011, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, Nonfiction, by Editor

On a fateful day in the spring of 1954 Robert Jay Lifton, a young American psychiatrist just discharged from service in the Korean War, decided to stay in Hong Kong rather than return home—changing his life plans entirely—so that he could continue work that had enthralled him, interviewing people subjected to Chinese thought reform. He had plunged into uncharted territory in probing the far reaches of the human psyche, as he would repeatedly in the years ahead, and his Hong Kong research provided the first understanding of the insidious process that came to be known as brainwashing.

The Red Market: On the Trail of the World’s Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers, and Child Traffickers by Scott Carney

On June 11, 2011, in Book Reviews, Nonfiction, by Editor

Investigative journalist Scott Carney has spent five years on the ground tracing the lucrative and deeply secretive trade in human bodies and body parts—a vast hidden economy known as the “red market.” From the horrifying to the ridiculous, he discovers its varied forms: an Indian village nicknamed “Kidneyvakkam” because most of its residents have sold their kidneys for cash; unscrupulous grave robbers who steal human bones from cemeteries, morgues, and funeral pyres for anatomical skeletons used in Western medical schools and labs; an ancient temple that makes money selling the hair of its devotees to wig makers in America—to the tune of $6 million annually.

The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good

On June 8, 2011, in Book Reviews, Nonfiction, by Editor

Whether eating, taking drugs, engaging in sex, or doing good deeds, the pursuit of pleasure is a central drive of the human animal. In The Compass of Pleasure Johns Hopkins neuroscientist David J. Linden explains how pleasure affects us at the most fundamental level: in our brain.

Ask Me Why I Hurt: The Kids Nobody Wants and the Doctor Who Heals Them

On April 22, 2011, in Book Reviews, by Editor

In 2000, while working at Arizona’s Phoenix Children’s Hospital, Christensen asked to be assigned a daunting task—leading a mobile health-care unit aimed at serving homeless children. In the world of modern medicine, this was not the obvious way to climb the career ladder toward regular hours and a hefty salary. With a small group of passionately committed providers, Christensen turned this small community-service unit into an integral part of the urban medical landscape. Along the way, he struggled to balance the emotional and psychological demands of treating vulnerable children with the pressures placed on his marriage and family life.

Shadows Bright as Glass: The Remarkable Story of One Man’s Journey from Brain Trauma to Artistic Triumph by Amy E Nutt

On April 17, 2011, in Book Reviews, Nonfiction, by Editor

In a beautifully crafted narrative, award-winning journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Amy Ellis Nutt interweaves Sarkin’s remarkable story with a fascinating tour of the history of and latest findings in neuroscience and evolution that illuminate how the brain produces, from its web of billions of neurons and chaos of liquid electrical pulses, the richness of human experience that makes us who we are. Nutt brings vividly to life pivotal moments of discovery in neuroscience, from the shocking “rebirth” of a young girl hanged in 1650 to the first autopsy of an autistic savant’s brain, and the extraordinary true stories of people whose personalities and cognitive abilities were dramatically altered by brain trauma, often in shocking ways