Monday, October 14, 2024

Old Newspaper Stories Relevant to Whether Brains Make Minds

The Chronicling America web site allows you to make a full-text search of many decades of American newspapers. Below are some interesting clips from old newspaper articles, all having some relevance to whether the human brain makes the human mind. 

Below is a clip from an 1899 newspaper article, one suggesting there is no relation between brain size and intelligence:

brain size and intelligence

You can read the article here:


Here is a news story from 1912:

man with half a brain

You can read the news story here:


The news story below tells us that a man who lost part of his brain "larger than a teacup"  is "nearly as well as before," with the weird detail that doctor's put part of a calf's brain in his head. 

weird brain story

You can read the story here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86092151/1899-06-16/ed-1/seq-1/

Below is a clip from an old newspaper story, one ending with a statement "more than half his brain was destroyed, and yet he retained his mental faculties in full force till he died":


The newspaper story can be read here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84020422/1876-03-01/ed-1/seq-4/

The newspaper account below discusses some topics relevant to whether brains make minds:


good minds with damaged brains

You can read the story using the link below:


The following is part of a news article that appeared in 1936:


You can read the full article here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1936-09-11/ed-1/seq-30/

According to the Guinness Book of World Records article here, the largest human brain ever recorded was a brain of 2850 grams (about 100 ounces), which belonged not to some genius, but to a man with "intellectual difficulties." 

Below is a news story from 1904, telling of a man whose "intellectual capacity was not effected in the slightest" despite a very serious brain injury:

little damage from brain injury
You can read the story here:


Here is a similar story of a man who shot himself through the head in an attempt to kill himself, but still survived so well that he "talks rationally":

brain injury with mind preservation

You can read the story here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85038489/1912-04-30/ed-1/seq-1/

I've saved the best for last. It is an account to be found on page 603 of the September 17, 1936 edition of the periodical Light, and deals with the widely noted phenomenon called terminal lucidity:

terminal lucidity

You can read the account using the link below:



No comments:

Post a Comment