Experience Mr. Humble And Dr. Butcher: A Monkeys Head, The Popes Neuroscientist, And The Quest To Transplant The Soul Written By Brandy Schillace Exhibited In Leaflet

book got more interesting to me the more I got into it, I had no idea about the gruesome experiments that have been done in the name of science, But it was a fascinating read! I have always found the topic of the soul humans only and scientific exploration to be gravitationally compelling enough to suck me into any good book.
And this IS a good book, However, I must admit I had to skip over bits cruelty to animals and swallow my possible spiritual pride to take this in, This is a nonfictional look at the life and work of Dr, Robert White, who had connections to the Vatican and two popes, Publically, he developed many lifesaving techniques in neurosurgery, In the dark of his lab, however, he stepped over a few ethical lines in trying to discover a way to transplant the soul of a dead person into another body so that the deceased could continue to live.
Whew! While I dont blame him for wanting an answer, I am not happy with his methods, But then this is not a story about me, . . its about him. Wellwritten, thoroughly researched, it is a work worthy of any medical practitioners library or maybe yours,

I met this book at Auntie's Bookstore in Spokane, WA An amazing recollection of one scientist's pursuit to find the locus of human soul and all the useful incidental findings that underlie neurosurgery till this day on.
Full of bioethical dilemmas, political undertone and the persistent spirit of human mind, One change I'd wish to see is for the modern day author such as Schillace is to properly name Ukraine, without the definitie article "the" surely the amount of research done for this book could've suggested that, especially since the country is referred to more than several times throughout the book.
Overall, highly recommend! The title of this book is really unfortunate, I assume that the publishers were hoping to grab readers' interest with this science fiction like title,

Brandy Schillace's book is so much more than just weird science, While the focus is on Dr, White and his quest to transplant a human head, there is lots of cutting edge neuroscience packed in this books' pages, While Dr. White successfully transplanted a monkey's head, he was never able to perform this operation on a human due to ethical and financial problems, He wanted to do this operation to extend the lives of people who were paralyzed and near the end of life as the result of accompanying health problems, He planned to transplant the head on to the body of someone who was brain dead, Although the head transplant would not alleviate paralysis because the spine could not be hooked up, it could have extended the lifespan as long as rejection was kept under control.


Much of the book is a biography of Dr, White and his development of perfusion cooling down the brain and body to stop damage to organs and systems from swelling due to injury or while in surgery, A major accomplishment that is used many times daily to save lives,

Dr. White was a highly skilled neurosurgeon who saved many lives and prolonged others, Saving lives was his goal, He learned many of his techniques from practicing on monkeys, And this type of research made him the target of animals' rights groups like PETA,

Deeply religious, Dr, White was a catholic, and he was on the front lines of surgery as organ transplants became possible, Ethical and religious questions about when someone was really dead and organ harvest was possible were being brought to the fore at this time, White and others argued that lack of an EEG seen in brain death should be the standard rather than a beating heart because medical professional can keep a heart beating with heart/lung machines long after brain function has disappeared.
Dr. White met with the Pope hoping to persuade him to this view,

Dr. White loved the practice of medicine and did not mind attention, People who enjoy reading about neurology and medicine would really enjoy this book, Head transplants Yes please! An expertly told story from the intersection of science, medicine, philosophy, and theology, And its more than just head transplants, of course, As if that wasnt enough to draw me in, Schillace has a scientists grasp of the anatomical and physiological aspects, a journalists eye for significant detail, a historians sense of the larger social context, and a novelists flair for building a compelling narrative.
And, of course, a taste for the macabre, Schillaces talents and her subject come together perfectly here, Highly recommended. pretty good but waayy too much smack about Lenin This was an extremely difficult book to get through, A number of times I just had to put it down, And the only reason I was reading it was because it was for a book discussion, I could not get over the cruelty of Dr, White, who, although seemingly a decent person, tortured animals in the name of science, Sorry to say, as I think the author is trying to make the case that the torture helped make advances in medicine, But I can't get over the horror created by a reallife Dr, Frankenstein. He was so concerned about the soul but with his inhumane and soulless behavior did not care about the cost to his own soul, I initially plucked this book off the librarys new nonfiction shelf to show my senior English students how cool the library, nonfiction, and learning in general can be, Who wouldnt want to read a book with a subtitle “A Monkeys Head, the Popes Neuroscientist, and the Quest to Transplant the Soul” It was a hard sell, so I started reading it and gave my students updates.
I got hooked. How have I never heard this story of monkey head transplantsScience fiction became fact in thes in Dr, Whites lab with the ultimate goal of a human head transplant almost becoming a reality in thes,
Schillaces voice is objective and reminds me of Tara Westovers “Educated” ability to discuss shocking topics with a cool syntax, I highly recommend this to anyone who wants an amazing story but also learn a thing or two, The “delightfully macabre” The New York Times true tale of a brilliant and eccentric surgeonand his quest to transplant the human soul,

In the early days of the Cold War, a spirit of desperate scientific rivalry birthed a different kind of space race: not the race to outer space that we all know, but a race to master the inner space of the human body.
While surgeons on either side of the Iron Curtain competed to become the first to transplant organs like the kidney and heart, a young American neurosurgeon had an even more ambitious thought: Why not transplant the brain

Dr.
Robert White was a friend to two popes and a founder of the Vaticans Commission on Bioethics, He developed lifesaving neurosurgical techniques still used in hospitals today and was nominated for the Nobel Prize, But like Dr. Jekyll before him, Dr. White had another identity. In his lab, he was waging a battle against the limits of science and against mortality itselfworking to perfect a surgery that would allow the soul to live on after the human body had died.


This “fascinating” The Wall Street Journal, “provocative” The Washington Post tale follows his decadeslong quest into tangled matters of science, Cold War politics, and faith, revealing the complex and often murky ethics of experimentation and remarkable innovations that today save patients from certain death.
Its a “masterful” Science look at our greatest fears

and our greatest hopesand the long, strange journey from science fiction to science fact, The surgery of organ transplantation has taken off in the past fifty years, However, the ability to apply these gains to the nervous system has lagged behind due to the limitations of nerve regeneration, As told in this book, during this time, Robert White, MD/PhD, sought to pioneer head transplantation onto a new body, He was successful in transplanting a monkeys head onto anothers body, However, he retired and died before his dream could come true,

Schillances work seeks to tell his story and the story of this field, The tale is gripping, the character personalities are strong, and the stakes are high, This story is not wellknown to the public as journalistically, it has mostly been covered in sensationalist news sources, Therefore, Schillances informative tale should reach interested ears,

Is White a humble genius or merely a new Dr, Butcher and Dr. Frankenstein That gripping question lies behind the historical unfolding of this works plot, The reader is left to make up her/his own mind, After finishing this work, I find elements of both stereotypes are true, Animals are harmed to make science advance, but noble scientific aims could save human lives, As White asks, would society rather a surgeon practice on monkeys or a human child

These relevant and pertinent questions bring us to today as the field has continued in Whites absence.
Head transplantation is variously proposed still, A central limitation to Whites work was the inability to bring a paralyzed spinal cord to life, Thus, the patient would always remain a paralytic, However, in recent years, nerve regeneration technology has shown promise additionally, some have developed technology that bypasses the spinal cord by sending signals directly from the brain to local nerve endings.
Schillance accurately and excitedly exposits these developments,

As part of the history of medicine, this work is especially relevant to historians and healthcare professionals, but it also has the chance to reach a wider general audience.
Again, this story is not wellknown but should be, It may enter more into societys conversations about bioethics in coming years, Schillance casts the facts and situation well, without bias or agenda, Are we ready for the reality of Mary Shelleys Frankenstein Ready or not, it may come, .