© The Author (2007). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Book Review |
Fashion and cult in neuroscience—the case of hysteria
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Two obdurate delusions of neuroscience (and neuroscientists) are illustrated by these books—that the contemporary position inevitably is the most scientifically advanced, and that medical science is set on an inexorable and more or less linear path to ultimate truth. The image is conjured of the scientist as stone mason, chipping away at the rock of ignorance uncovering the glorious forms of reason, but the trajectory of neuroscience of course is far less perfect. The awkward reality is that the march of science has an erratic course, veering up many culs de sac, and is a trajectory influenced by personality cult and by public fashion—today as much as ever.
It is with these central propositions in mind that the three books can be considered, involving as they do the history of the medical conceptions of hysteria. One (Enquist) is a quite brilliant novel, one (Maddox) an excellent biography and one (Faulks)
UCL Institute of Neurology
Queen Square
London WC1N3BG, UK