Reviews - Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole: A Renowned Neurologist Explains the Mystery and Drama of Brain Disease

31 reviews for:

Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole: A Renowned Neurologist Explains the Mystery and Drama of Brain Disease

Fascinating

Told with arresting honesty this is a book about people not medicine. You learn as much about the author as you do about the neurological problems of the people he treats. And the people he treats remain people to him despite their plethora of symptoms and puzzles.

jenam's review

5.0

informative medium-paced

iwonaz's review

2.0

informative slow-paced

I had very different expectations going into this book, and I’m probably at fault here. I think I got this book before starting uni and it was advertised as a psychology book, which I quickly found out it was about neurology. At first I thought it’d still be interesting but it was written from a neurologist’s perspective, which is quite different to a psychologists, especially when it comes to patients. My bad for not reading into the blurb too much.

breadandmushrooms's review against another edition

2.75

informative slow-paced

nihadkh's review

4.0

hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

tamarant4's review against another edition

2.5

informative medium-paced

Sadly, when it comes to ... such borderline theories, I have no spiel to offer, and sometimes revert to being a jerk. In this case, I suggested that they both might be magnetized. As an experiment, I said, he and his wife should float on their backs in their swimming pool to see if they both pointed north. I was guessing that they had a pool. I was right. They never came back. [p. 102]

There are some fascinating case studies here (ovarian teratoma, motor neurone disease, Parkinson's) and Ropper stresses the importance of listening to the patient's account of their problem, as well as observing the physical signs of it. Unfortunately Ropper presents as rather arrogant, very much the leader of any team he's in. (He does make one mistaken diagnosis: the patient dies: he doesn't tell the patient's family about his mistake.)

He's also dismissive of 'conversion disorders' -- the modern term for hysteria and psychosomatic issues -- and rather too fond of describing his patients' physical appearance. The chapter on brain death was especially interesting, but also horrific because it read as though one patient's reputation affected how he (well, his body) was treated by hospital staff.

Interesting and well-written but I prefer the humility and compassion of authors such as Oliver Sacks. That said, I did laugh at the episode I've quoted at the top of this review... despite knowing that those people were experiencing what they perceived as a medical issue, and that they were paying for medical care.