Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole: A Renowned Neurologist Explains the Mystery and Drama of Brain Disease
Allan H. Ropper - 2014
What is it like to try to heal the body when the mind is under attack? In this book, Dr. Allan Ropper and Brian Burrell take the reader behind the scenes at Harvard Medical School's neurology unit to show how a seasoned diagnostician faces down bizarre, life-altering afflictions. Like Alice in Wonderland, Dr. Ropper inhabits a world where absurdities abound:• A figure skater whose body has become a ticking time-bomb • A salesman who drives around and around a traffic rotary, unable to get off • A college quarterback who can't stop calling the same play • A child molester who, after falling on the ice, is left with a brain that is very much dead inside a body that is very much alive • A mother of two young girls, diagnosed with ALS, who has to decide whether a life locked inside her own head is worth livingHow does one begin to treat such cases, to counsel people whose lives may be changed forever? How does one train the next generation of clinicians to deal with the moral and medical aspects of brain disease? Dr. Ropper and his colleague answer these questions by taking the reader into a rarified world where lives and minds hang in the balance.
Death is of Vital Importance: On Life, Death, and Life After Death
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross - 1995
Including case histories and stories, the book recounts such events as her mother's death, and her own near-death experience and epiphany of cosmic consciousness.
Challenging Beliefs: Memoirs of a Career
Tim Noakes - 2011
Through a lifetime of research, he has developed key scientific concepts in sport that have not only redefined the way elite athletes and teams approach their professions, but challenged conventional global thinking in these areas.In this new and updated edition of Challenging Beliefs, Noakes gives his views on everything from overtraining, banned substances and the dangers of rugby to the sports-drink industry, and children and sport, debunking a few sporting myths in the process. Stories and case studies of the teams and athletes with whom he has worked are also included. In providing an intimate look at the golden threads running through Noakes's life and career, this truly fascinating book reveals the groundbreaking theories and principles generated by one of the greatest minds in the history of sports science.
The Best American Science Writing 2000
James Gleick - 2000
The first volume in this annual series of the best writing by Americans, meticulously selected by bestselling author James Gleick, one of the foremost chronicles of scientific social history, debuts with a stellar collection of writers and thinkers. Many of these cutting-edge essays offer glimpses of new realms of discovery and thought, exploring territory that is unfamiliar to most of us, or finding the unexpected in the midst of the familiar. Nobel Laureate physicist Steven Weinberg challenges the idea of whether the universe has a designer; Pulitzer Prize winner Natalie Angier reassesses caveman (and-woman) couture; bestselling author and Darwinian theorist Stephen Jay Gould makes a claim for the man whose ideas Darwin discredited; Timothy Ferris proposes a realistic alternative to wrap-speed interseller travel; neurologist and bestselling author Oliver Sacks reminisces about his first loves-chemistry and math. This diverse, stimulating and accessible collection is required reading for anyone who wants to travel to the frontier of knowledge.
Health Revelations from Heaven and Earth
Tommy Rosa - 2015
Lying by the road, he felt a tug whisking him off into a tunnel of light to meet his divine teacher in heaven. After several weeks in a coma, Tommy returned to earth to walk again with a heightened sense of connection to one and all.Around the same time, Dr. Stephen Sinatra, an integrative cardiologist, was dismantling the prevailing ideas of preventive pharmacology with his holistic approach to treatment. In their first encounter, Tommy got the intuitive message that Dr. Sinatra had an infection in his hip. Tommy s insight confirmed Dr. Sinatra s own suspicion. When Tommy shared with Dr. Sinatra the divine revelations of healing that he had learned, Dr. Sinatra was shocked the keys to solving the imbalance of energy that he had identified as the cause of most chronic illnesses were the same as those Tommy was relating.From this intersection of the divine and the scientific, Tommy Rosa and Dr. Sinatra began writing a prescriptive guide for healthy living. In "Health Revelations from Heaven and Earth," Tommy Rosa reveals the eight revelations, gleaned from God, that will lead you toward revitalized health, a newfound sense of purpose, and spiritual balance fully corroborated by Dr. Sinatra s four decades of medical expertise bringing heaven and earth a little bit closer.
Blueprints Obstetrics & Gynecology
Tamara L. Callahan - 1997
This popular Blueprints book has been refined and updated while keeping the concise, organized style and clinical high-yield content of previous editions. Features include USMLE-style questions and answers with full explanations; Key Points in every section; and a color-enhanced design that increases the usefulness of figures and tables.This edition's completely revised art program includes many additional illustrations. Each chapter in this edition ends with evidence-based references (journals) for students to do additional reading/research.
Heart 411: The Only Guide to Heart Health You'll Ever Need
Marc Gillinov - 2012
In Heart 411, two renowned experts, heart surgeon Marc Gillinov and cardiologist Steven Nissen, tackle the questions their patients have raised over their decades of practice: Can the stress of my job really lead to a heart attack? How does exercise help my heart, and what is the right amount and type of exercise? What are the most important tests for my heart, and when do I need them? How do symptoms and treatments differ among men, women, and children?Backed by decades of clinical experience and up-to-the-minute research, yet written in the accessible, down-to-earth tone of your trusted family doctor, Heart 411 cuts through the confusion to give you the knowledge and tools you need to live a long and heart-healthy life.
A Map of the Child: A Pediatrician's Tour of the Body
Darshak Sanghavi - 2003
. . Sanghavi is a vivid and effortless teller of human tales and quite evidently a special doctor, too." —Atul Gawande, author of ComplicationsIn this compelling book, Dr. Darshak Sanghavi takes the reader on a dramatic tour of a child's eight vital organs, beginning with the lungs and proceeding through the heart, blood, bones, brain, skin, gonads, and gut.Along the way, we meet children and families in extraordinary circumstances—a premature baby named Adam Flax who was born with undeveloped lungs, a teenage boy with a positive pregnancy test, and a young girl who keeps losing weight despite her voracious appetite. In a deeply personal narrative, Sanghavi provides a richly detailed—and humanized—portrait of how the pediatric body functions in both sickness and health.
The Harvard Medical School Guide to Tai Chi: 12 Weeks to a Healthy Body, Strong Heart, and Sharp Mind (Harvard Health Publications)
Peter M. Wayne - 2013
Cutting-edge research from Harvard Medical School also supports the long-standing claims that Tai Chi also has a beneficial impact on the health of the heart, bones, nerves and muscles, immune system, and the mind. This research provides fascinating insight into the underlying physiological mechanisms that explain how Tai Chi actually works. Dr. Peter M. Wayne, a longtime Tai Chi teacher and a researcher at Harvard Medical School, developed and tested protocols similar to the simplified program he includes in this book, which is suited to people of all ages, and can be done in just a few minutes a day. This book includes: • The basic program, illustrated by more than 50 photographs • Practical tips for integrating Tai Chi into everyday activities • An introduction to the traditional principles of Tai Chi • Up-to-date summaries of the research literature on the health benefits of Tai Chi • How Tai Chi can enhance work productivity, creativity, and sports performance • And much more
The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards
William J. Broad - 2012
He reveals what is real and what is illusory, in the process exposing moves that can harm or even kill. Five years in the making, The Science of Yoga draws on a hidden wealth of discovery, drama, and surprising fact to cut through the fog that surrounds contemporary yoga and to show—for the first time—what is uplifting and beneficial and what is delusional, flaky, and dangerous. At heart, it illuminates the risks and rewards.Broad describes yoga as a burgeoning global industry that attracts not only curious scientists but millions of true believers and charismatic hustlers. He takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of unknown yoga that goes from old archives in Calcutta to world capitals of medical research, from storied ashrams to spotless laboratories, from sweaty yoga studios with master teachers to the cozy offices of yoga healers. In the process, he shatters myths, lays out unexpected benefits, and offers a compelling vision of how the discipline can be improved.
Suggestible You: The Curious Science of Your Brain's Ability to Deceive, Transform, and Heal
Erik Vance - 2016
Could the secrets to personal health lie within our own brains? Journalist Erik Vance explores the surprising ways our expectations and beliefs influence our bodily responses to pain, disease, and everyday events. Drawing on centuries of research and interviews with leading experts in the field, Vance takes us on a fascinating adventure from Harvard’s research labs to a witch doctor’s office in Catemaco, Mexico, to an alternative medicine school near Beijing (often called “China’s Hogwarts”). Vance’s firsthand dispatches will change the way you think—and feel. Continuing the success of National Geographic’s brain books and rounding out our pop science category, this book shows how expectations, beliefs, and self-deception can actively change our bodies and minds. Vance builds a case for our “internal pharmacy”—the very real chemical reactions our brains produce when we think we are experiencing pain or healing, actual or perceived. Supporting this idea is centuries of placebo research in a range of forms, from sugar pills to shock waves; studies of alternative medicine techniques heralded and condemned in different parts of the world (think crystals and chakras); and most recently, major advances in brain mapping technology. Thanks to this technology, we're learning how we might leverage our suggestibility (or lack thereof) for personalized medicine, and Vance brings us to the front lines of such study.From the Hardcover edition.
The Illustrated Guide To Crystals
Judy Hall - 2000
Never before has there been such a wide range of gems available, and in this lavishly illustrated guide is all the information needed to choose, cleanse, and program these gifts of nature. Along with a colorful crystal directory and an explanation of the different types, see how to use your own special stone to find a soul mate, and improve relationships. Restore the body with the ancient art of crystal medicine, work with the chakras, and relieve mental and emotional stress. Safeguard your space and aura; turn stones into talismans and amulets, and perform crystal divination. Find the right crystal for increasing self-worth and intuition, recalling a past life, or even contacting the angelic realms. Bonus: includes gem therapy remedies. 128 pages (all in color), 8 x 10.
DMT: The Spirit Molecule
Rick Strassman - 2000
Rick Strassman conducted US DEA-approved clinical research at the University of New Mexico in which he injected 60 volunteers with DMT, one of the most powerful psychedelics known. His detailed account of those sessions is an inquiry into the nature of the human mind and the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. DMT, a plant-derived chemical that is also manufactured by the human brain, consistently produced near-death and mystical experiences. Many volunteers reported convincing encounters with intelligent nonhuman presences, especially "aliens." Nearly all felt that the sessions were among the most profound experiences of their lives.Strassman's research connects DMT with the pineal gland, considered by Hindus to be the site of the seventh chakra and by René Descartes to be the seat of the soul. DMT: The Spirit Molecule makes the case that DMT, naturally released by the pineal gland, facilitates the soul's movement in and out of the body and is an integral part of the birth and death experiences, as well as the highest states of meditation and even sexual transcendence. Strassman also believes that alien abduction experiences are brought on by accidental releases of DMT. If used wisely, DMT could trigger a period of remarkable progress in the scientific exploration of the most mystical regions of the human mind and soul.
The Fifth Gospel: From the Akashic Record
Rudolf Steiner - 1914
10, 1913 - Feb. 10, 1914 (CW 148)From his clairvoyant reading of the akashic record--the cosmic memory of all events, actions, and thoughts--Steiner was able to discuss aspects of the life of Jesus Christ that are not recorded in the four Gospels of the conventional Christian Bible. The results of such research has been called "The Fifth Gospel."After an intense inner struggle to verify the exact nature of these events, and having checked the results of his research, Steiner described many detailed episodes from the akashic record. For example, he speaks of Jesus' life in the community of the Essenes, the temptation of Christ in the wilderness, and a significant, previously unreported conversation between Jesus and Mary.Steiner states that divulging such spiritual research is intensely difficult, but that "although people show little inclination to be told such facts as these, it was absolutely essential that knowledge of such facts should be brought to Earth evolution at the present time."German title of the German source edition: Aus der Akasha-Forschung. Das f�nfte Evangelium.