Abstract
Robert Winston, a professor of fertility studies and member of the House of Lords, is perhaps most widely known for his widely acclaimed television series such as ‘Human instinct’ and ‘Walking with cavemen’. Complementing the television series have been companion books which amplify or extend the themes. Such is the case with this latest work on the human mind ‘and how to make the most of it’ which accompanies a recently completed BBC television series.
Winston is an excellent communicator who takes complex subjects and produces a highly readable text, the style of which is agreeable to the qualified health professional but at the same time quite accessible for the interested layperson.
The human mind is truly a vast topic. Winston is necessarily selective in the issues that he focuses on and particularly selective in respect to research that he quotes. Coverage is given to the history of neuroscience, which includes the human dimensions of the personalities and conflicts of key protagonists, for example that between Golgi and Cajal. Golgi, who discovered the silver stain in 1873 that is specifically taken up by neurones, is described as ‘a supreme egotist’, while Cajal, who used the technique to produce the first detailed drawings of neurones in different parts of the brain, is described as much more generous. Korbinian Brodmann, Hans Berger, John Hughlings Jackson, Wilder Penfield, Egas Moniz, Walter Freeman, Hans Mesmer, Hans Eysenck, Wilhelm Reich and Sigmund Freud are among those individuals whose work is a focus of particular attention.
The book includes an outline of neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, the influences of genetics and environment on brain development, learning, memory, emotional expression, language, creativity, the effects of drugs on brain functioning, the dimension of intelligence and the dimensions of personality. There is conjecture about the evolutionary significance of major depressions and the content of common phobias.
Throughout the book there are repeated references to research that looks at maximizing one's intellectual abilities into late life. (For those who maintain challenging mental activity, perform regular physical activity and who avoid obesity and damaging drugs, the prognosis is generally good.)
Winston is appropriately critical of the psychosurgical exploits of Egas Moniz and particularly so of Freeman and Watts' production-line destruction of hundreds of people's frontal lobes. His son, who sometimes used to assist him, described his method of anaesthesia, which was to stun the patient with a large electric shock. An assistant held the patient down on the operating table and, once the convulsions had subsided, Walter Freeman lifted an eyelid of the patient – the trans-orbital approach is graphically described by a bystander: ‘lifting the eyelid, he inserted an icepick-like instrument through the tear-duct. A few taps with a surgical hammer [sometimes Freeman is reported as flamboyantly using a carpenter's mallet when he was showing off his prowess] breached the bone. Freeman took position behind the patient's head, pushed the leucotome about an inch and a half in the frontal lobe of the patient's brain, and moved the tip back and forth.’ One professor of neurology is recorded as fainting when he watched Freeman demonstrating his work.
Love, and the stages of love, as well as lies and the subtleties of detecting them are themes given particular attention. While an evolutionary perspective frequently emerges, there is no detailed discussion of the evolution of the human brain or what is known or conjectured about the mind or brains of hominids and man's immediate predecessors. Given its central importance, it is unusual that attachment theory is given scant attention. (John Bowlby is never mentioned.) As is the case with many writers, Winston does not make clear distinctions between repression and dissociation and his attempt to deal with ego defence mechanisms in general is superficial and unenlightening. Curiously, while he includes material on mechanisms of enhancing memory, he makes no mention of the extensive publications of Tony Buzan, nor in relation to creativity does he even cite Edward de Bono.
I like Winston's book, yet I suspect the enormous scope of its topic, allied with a rush to have it published, have meant that compared with some of his other works, the content of this one, while interesting and challenging, is nevertheless just a little underdone.