Newton's Madness

In this sequel to "Toscanini's Fumble", the author again delves into the mysterious and disturbing world of human brain disorder. As a diagnostician, it is often the most disparate and unlikely channels of investigation that leads him to make a prognosis. When the Rabbi's niece came to him with a rare and unusual disease, it was the biblical story of Joshua and the walls of Jericho which alerted him to the correct diagnosis. Klawans also reflects on how neurological diseases have often wrongly been treated as psychiatric problems. Isaac Newton's madness, long thought to be brought on by religious excitement and the death of his mother, was in fact caused by an over-exposure to mercury vapours from his experiments, a condition from which he never fully recovered. This collection offers the lay reader a real grasp of the complex workings of the human brain and the frightening consequences when something goes wrong with it.