Gray Matters : A Biography of Brain Surgery

The brain weighs just three and a half pounds, but it governs every aspect of our lives...

AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR

'A fascinating and wide-ranging account of what neurosurgery is really about – the past, present and future.' Henry Marsh, author of Do No Harm

Since its inception in the early twentieth century, brain surgery has maintained an air of mystery. As the saying ‘it’s not exactly brain surgery’ suggests, the specialty has become synonymous with a level of complexity and meticulousness rivalled only by, well, rocket science.

Warm, rigorous and deeply insightful, neurosurgeon Theodore Schwartz reveals what it’s really like to get inside someone’s head – where every second can mean the difference between life or death. Drawing from Schwartz’s experience in one of New York’s busiest hospitals, Gray Matters explores the short but storied history of brain surgery. From the dark days of the lobotomy to the latest research into the long-term effects of contact sports on athletes’ cerebral health, Schwartz unfolds the fascinating story of how we came to understand this extraordinary, three-pound organ, which not only keeps us alive, but makes us who we are.

'Fascinating... Schwartz’s way with words is as skilful as his wielding of microscissors.' Mail on Sunday

Dr Theodore H. Schwartz is the David and Ursel Barnes Endowed Professor of Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery at Weill Cornell Medical Center at New York Presbyterian Hospital, one of the busiest and most highly ranked neurosurgery centres in the world. He has published over five hundred scientific articles and chapters on neu­rosurgery, and has lectured around the world – from Bogotá to Vienna to Mumbai – on new, minimally invasive surgical techniques that he helped develop. He also runs a basic science laboratory devoted to epilepsy research. He studied philosophy and literature at Harvard.