She "Seemed Entirely Undamaged in Mental Capacity" After They Removed Half Her Brain

 Below is a news report that appeared in the November 10, 1933 edition of a newspaper called the Sedalia Democrat, a news report you can read here. 

In the story above we read this:

"Dr. Gardner removed the entire right half of the brain. The patient recognized friends immediately on recovering from  the anesthetic and seemed entirely undamaged in mental capacity."

The headline refers to Dr. Dandy.  The case of Dandy's patients is reported in the American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Jul., 1934), pages 500-503. We read this: 

"Dandy has completely removed the right cerebral hemisphere from eight patients. He has performed total extirpations of one or more lobes much oftener... There are tabulated below certain generalizations on the effects of removing the right hemisphere.... The operation was the complete extirpation of the right frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes peripheral to the corpus striatum. The weight of the tissue re moved varies, with the pathological conditions involved, from 250 to 584 grm [grams].Coherent conversation began within twenty-four hours after operation, and in one case on the afternoon of the same day. Later examinations showed no observable mental changes. The patients were perfectly oriented in respect of time, place, and person; their memory was unimpaired for immediate and remote events; conversation was always coherent; ability to read, write, compute, and learn new material was unaltered. Current events were followed with normal interest. There were no personality changes apparent; the patients were emotionally stable, without fears, delusions, hallucinations, expansive ideas or obsessions, and with a good sense of humor; they joked frequently. They showed a natural interest in their condition and future. They cooperated intelligently at all times throughout post-operative care and subsequent testing of function." 

How could the memory of patients be "unimpaired for immediate and remote events" if memories are stored in brains?

Here is a quote from the newspaper article you can read here:

"Three seven-year-old chil­dren. Albert has had half his dam­aged brain removed by surgeons. Charley has millions of dead cells in his brain but has responded to nonsurgical treatment. Billy has a nor­mal brain. Yet all three are equal in intelligence."

So Albert who had half his brain removed (probably to treat epilepsy) had an intelligence equal to Billy who had a normal brain. That's not what we would expect under "brains make minds" assumptions. 

In the AP newspaper article here, we read, "One man had the right front lobe of his brain removed, con­scious and answering questions all the while, with one needle in his face below the cheek bone, and three in the top side of his right foot."

Below we read a report by a doctor (Logan Clendening) who attended a conference of the American Medical Association. In the bottom right corner, we hear he heard about a young girl who had "one-half of her brain removed for epilepsy." We are not told about any problem that the girl suffered, but merely told that "she is able to conduct her life and affairs with considerable success." 

Below is a similar newspaper account you can read here. We read of "mental faculties entirely unimpaired," even though the patient (John Daly) had "the larger part of his brain removed by an operation."

More 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.  

The news account below is from 1957:

You can read the report here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1957-09-02/ed-1/seq-3/

The account below is from the nineteenth century. We hear of a man who apparently did not suffer intellectual damage from losing half of his brain. 

You can read the 1876 account here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84038123/1876-01-21/ed-1/seq-1/

The newspaper account below is from 1898:

You can read the story here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85066387/1898-07-03/ed-1/seq-19/

Using an OCR feature of the page above, I get this quotation of its middle part:

"In instances in which it was discovered after death that the connecting bridge between the hemispheres

was entirely wanting, neither derangement in intellect was observed, nor any other abnormality of life in the way of movement or sensation. Thus, in the notable case of Bichat, one of the foremost anatomists of his day, one lobe of his brain was found markedly smaller than the other. He was, in fact, deficient in one-half of his brain, and yet his mental and physical life was in its way notably of a high order. In another case, reported by Cruveilhier, a man died in the hospital at the age of 42 years from heart disease. He exhibited no lack of intelligence, yet after his death it was discovered that his left brain was practically destroyed and replaced by a watery substance. Another case, reported by Andral, was of a man who died at the age of 2S. He had suffered from a fall when three years old, and as a result was paralyzed on his left side. The right half of his brain had practically disappeared, so that the parts below this half constituted the floor for an empty space. Andral says of this

man that he 'had received a good education, and had profited by it; he had a good. memory; his speech was free and easy; his intelligence was such as we should expect to find in an ordinary man.' "

Below is a news story from 1938. We read of a girl "with half a brain" who carried on in a "remarkably satisfactory manner":

You can read the news story here:

https://digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba.ca/islandora/object/uofm%3A1837343?solr%

We have below a report that is not at all what we would expect if the brain produces the mind.  The report is of patients who underwent surgeries that surgically severed the two halves of their brain. But instead of this producing a drastically different mind, or two minds, we have apparently minimal effects:

You can read the story using this link:

https://digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba.ca/islandora/object/uofm%3A2307311?solr%5Bquery

The 1905 newspaper account below tells us of a man who seemed to have suffered little mental damage from losing most of his brain:

You can read the account here:

https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=teh19051201-01.1.8&srpos=6&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-%22half+a+brain%22---------

Here is a news account from 1987 telling us of a big improvement in reading ability after half of a girl's brain was removed. 

You can read the full story here:

https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=jou19870907-01.1.4&srpos=3&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-%22half+her+brain%22---------

A fact contrary to all claims that brains make minds is the fact that very severe pain can be completely cancelled by the use of hypnosis. Below is a news story documenting the effect. 

On pages 27-28 of a book by Dr. James Esdaile he lists a host of dramatic painless surgeries he performed without using anesthesia, but only hypnosis on patients. The list includes about 20 amputations, and 200 removals of scrotal tumors ranging from 10 pounds in weight to more than 100 pounds in weight. Another book on this topic by Esdaile can be read here. 

In the following quote from a nineteenth century work, we learn of a great irony: that physicians took up a chemical method of anesthesia, one which would often kill people, rather than using hypnotic methods of anesthesia that were proving very safe and effective:

"In Dr. Brown Sequard's lectures upon 'Nervous Force,' delivered in Boston in 1874, he speaks of this form of anaesthesia as follows : 

'As regards the power of producing anaesthesia, it seems to me unfortunate that the discovery of ether was made just when it was. It was, as you well know, in 1846 or 1847 that the use of ether as an anaesthetic was begun. It started from this city (Boston). At that time in England, Dr. Forbes was trying to show from facts observed in England, and especially in India, from the practice of Dr. Esdaile, that something which was called Mesmerism, but which, after all, was nothing but a peculiar state of somnambulism induced in patients, gave to them the idea that they were deprived of feeling ; so that they were in reality under the influence of their imagination, and operations were performed that were quite painless. I say that it was a pity that ether was introduced just then, as it prevented the progress of our knowledge as to this method of producing anaesthesia. My friend Dr. Broca took it up in 1857-8 and pushed it very far; and for a time it was the fashion in Paris to have amputations performed after having been anaesthetized by the influence of Braidism or Hypnotism. A great many operations were performed in that way that were quite painless. But it was a process that was long and tedious, and surgeons were in a hurry and gave it up. I regret it very much, as there has never been a case of death from that method of producing anesthesia, while you well know that a great many cases of death have been produced by other methods.' "

He Had Half a Brain But "Superior Intelligence"

The failure of neuroscientists to adequately study minds is a very severe failure. You can get a PhD in neuroscience while making only a perfunctory study of human minds.  An examination of the courses required to get a Master's Degree in neuroscience will typically show that only one or two courses in psychology are required. Doing a neuroscience PhD dissertation typically involves some highly specialized research on some very narrow topic, research that does not require much in the way of additional study of human minds and the mental capabilities and mental experiences of humans.  The topic of human minds and human mental experiences is a topic of oceanic depth, requiring years of deep study for someone to get a good grasp of the full range of human mental states, human mental capabilities and human mental experiences. Very strangely, a typical neuroscientist is someone who will feel qualified to pontificate about what causes mental experiences, mental states and mental capabilities, even though he typically has done little to very deeply study mental experiences, mental states and mental capabilities.

Ask a neuroscientist to describe the best examples of high capacity and high accuracy in human memory recall, and you will be likely to get a shrug of the shoulders, or an answer that is wrong.  Ask a neuroscientist to describe the best examples of human performance in tests of extrasensory perception (ESP), and you will be likely to get a shrug of the shoulders, or an answer that is wrong. Ask a neuroscientist to describe the best examples of humans learning or memorizing things very quickly, and you will be likely to get an answer showing no study of such a topic. Ask a neuroscientist to describe the fastest examples of human calculation involving no use of any objects such as pencil, paper or blackboards, and you will likely get an answer that fails to describe the most impressive cases. 

Rather amazingly, it is also true that very many neuroscientists are not very deep and broad scholars of the topic of human brains. A typical neuroscientist may be able to tell you in very great detail about some narrow facet of human brains, and may be able to tell you in the greatest detail about how to use some machine that is used to study brains. But the same neuroscientist may have failed to properly study the topic of human brains in a way that involves learning about every relevant thing you could about human brains. Ask that neuroscientist to tell you what happens when you remove half of a human brain, and you may get an answer that is wrong. Ask that neuroscientist to tell you how reliably chemical synapses transmit nerve signals (action potentials), and you may get an answer that is wrong. Ask that neuroscientist to tell you how quickly a brain electrically shuts down when the heart stops (reaching a state called asystole), and you may get an answer that is wrong. 

Part of the job of properly studying brains is to study very thoroughly all of the most impressive cases of high mental performance despite very high brain damage. Relatively few neuroscientists show signs of having studied such a topic. In order to properly study such a topic, you must study unusual medical case histories.  Very many of the most important and relevant medical case histories are recorded in books, newspapers and magazines. But can you ever recall reading of a neuroscientist searching newspapers for unusual case histories in neuroscience? I can never recall reading of such activity by a neuroscientist. 

Luckily there are some web sites that contain very many of the most relevant examples of such medical case histories that are relevant to the question of whether the human mind is the source of the mind and whether the human mind is the storage place of human memories. One of those sites is the very site you are reading.  In my series of posts labeled "High Mental Function Despite Large Brain Damage," which you can read here, I describe many of the most important case histories that are  relevant to the question of whether the human brain is the source of the mind (keep pressing Older Posts at the bottom right to read the whole series). Now let me provide another such case, one I learned about from searching old newspaper articles for a use of the phrase "half a brain." The 1976 case is one that you can read about using the link here. Below are some excerpts from the newspaper article.

We read of a young man named Bruce Lipstadt who had a hemispherectomy operation when he was five years old, an operation that removed the left half of his brain.  Operations of that type are only done when someone is being plagued by very severe seizures, and the seizures cannot be controlled by medication.  The operation was done because as a young boy Bruce was suffering from 10 to 12 seizures a day. 

We are told that despite having the left half of his brain surgically removed, Bruce can ride a bike, swim and play sports. We are told that Bruce got an A grade (the best grade) in a course on statistics at a university. We are told Bruce's speech is normal. We are told that "although not a genius, Bruce has superior intelligence." We are told that Bruce works as a traffic controller, and that next spring he will get a degree in sociology from a university. 

The 1976 newspaper article here gives us some more details on Bruce Lipstadt. We read that his IQ tests showed his verbal IQ to be 126, well above the average IQ of 100. We read this:

A verbal IQ of 126 in a subject who had the left half of his brain removed is a result that would seem to "make mincemeat" out of claims that the brain is the source of the human mind. One of the accounts above mentions an authority named Sugar. The Bruce Lipstadt case seems to be the same one mentioned in the scientific paper here co-authored by Oscar Sugar MD, one entitled "Development of above normal language and intelligence 21 years after left hemispherectomy."

Below is a news account from 1937.

Even more dramatic cases of this type can be found by studying the cases of John Lorber, who reported above-average intelligence in quite a few subjects who had lost almost all of their brains due to disease. A scientific paper states this:

"[Lorber] described a woman with an extreme degree of hydrocephalus showing 'virtually no cerebral mantle' who had an IQ of 118, a girl aged 5 who had an IQ of 123 despite extreme hydrocephalus, a 7-year-old boy with gross hydrocephalus and an IQ of 128, another young adult with gross hydrocephalus and a verbal IQ of 144, and a nurse and an English teacher who both led normal lives despite gross hydrocephalus."

The newspaper account here tells us of a young girl who had the right half of her brain removed, and who can "speak clearly" after having had 80% of the right half of her brain removed.  The newspaper article here tells us more about the same girl. After describing the operation that removed almost all of half of her brain, the article states, "Many of her memory functions, such as her bilingual speech and comprehension skills, have remained intact, Friedman said."

The importance of such an observation can hardly be overemphasized. Bilingual speech (speaking in two languages) requires a massive amount of previous learned information. If the human brain stored memories, we should never expect bilingual speech to survive the removal of half of the brain. 

The article here tells us of Christina Santhouse had the right half of her brain removed in a hemispherectomy operation to stop seizures. We hear no mention of any loss of memory. We get a depiction of a 14-year-old child entering high school, just as a normal 14-year-old would do. 

The writer gives some creative but nonsensical explanations for the lack of any big mental effect from removing half of the brain. We are told the fairy tale story that neurons "haven't decided what they want to do when they grow up."  We are told the groundless claim that one side of the brain takes over the functions of the removed half. A much better explanation is that the functions attributed to brains were never actually produced by brains, so you can lose half a brain with relatively little effect. Your biggest laugh when reading the article is the writer's claim that "memory resides in both hemispheres of the brain, so there is little danger of losing it" when half of the brain is removed. This is as silly as claiming that you wrote your diary by filling up two thick diary books, so you won't be losing information if you burn one of those two thick diary books. 

A similar account can be read in the 1987 story here, where we learn of the preservation of learned knowledge and memories in Beth Usher, despite an operation removing the left half of her brain. 

The newspaper article here notes a case of a man who had the right half of his brain removed with "apparently no mental changes at all after the operation."

They Did Well After a Huge Loss of Brain Tissue

The 1935 newspaper account below (which you can read here) is entitled "Half a Brain Good As Whole." We read of operations removing a half a brain, "without the least reduction of intellectual  ability."

An article on Buzzfeed.com is entitled "Autopsy Professionals Are Revealing The Most Bizarre Anomalies They've Seen, And Wow, The Human Body Is Truly A Wonder."  We hear some amazing stories about autopsies revealing brains that are mostly gone. 

The accounts are anonymous, giving them less credibility than testimony from named witnesses. But only a very tiny fraction of the population seems to realize the philosophical significance of an autopsy report showing someone who had few symptoms had huge brain tissue loss. So we can rather safely assume that these stories are not being made up to score points in the debate about whether the brain is the source of the mind. 

One user reports this coming up in an autopsy:

"An old woman with an incredibly thick skull all the way around. Her brain was much, much smaller than it should have been, but according to her family, she was fully functional and displayed no deficits of any kind. She actually ran her own cheese-making company and died from a carbon monoxide leak. Strangest case I ever saw!"

Another user reports this:

"I did an autopsy of a young kid, around 10 years old, who had hydrocephalus and was quadriplegic, yet retained some of his normal functions, like talking and understanding — albeit minimally. When I opened his skull, there was no brain. I was shocked. This was my first time witnessing something like this. There was approximately 1.5 liters of fluid and just an empty skull. The brain was so severely atrophied it was smaller than a golf ball."

How can someone do talking and understanding without a brain? Only if the brain is not the source of your mind. 

Another user reports this:

"I observed a lot of things during my professional autopsies. The most notorious was a guy with four .22 bullets in his cranium. He didn't claim pain and apparently lived a normal life."

We can only imagine how much brain tissue must have been lost in total when the last of these four bullets appeared in the person's brain. But nonetheless we are told he "lived a normal life."

Compared to such a case, the case reported below is much less impressive:

"An 85-year-old patient had a tumor in her brain. It was the size of a golf ball on her right lobe — unknown to her before death." 

The 2024 article here is entitled, "Doctors Successfully Remove a Tennis Ball-Sized Tumor in an 8-Hour Surgery." We read of a woman who had a huge brain tumor of 7 to 8 centimeters. We have a visual showing the tumor. The tumor appears as a whitish mass. 

We get a vague listing of some symptoms the patient suffered, without  much of anything in the way of specifics. Referring to resection of the tumor (which means removal) we read this:

"Radhika underwent a successful bifrontal craniotomy, guided by navigation and tumor fluorescence technology, allowing for complete excision of the tumor. Remarkably, within one week of the surgery, she returned to her normal life."

She returned to her normal life? That's not what we would expect after the removal of so large a part of the brain, under the hypothesis that your brain makes your mind. 

The story below (which you can read here) describes children who had half of their brains removed to treat epilepsy. The story flatly states that the children "do not lose any of their intelligence, but their fits and antisocial behavior disappear, according to Dr. Eugene P. Spitz of Children's Hospital, Philadelphia." 

Below (from the news account here) is a description of tests on the surgical removal of half of the brain of monkeys. The result is one we might expect under the idea that the brain is not the source of the mind. 

Here is a new story from 1933 noting "no changes in intellect" after an operation that removed "almost all of the right half of a woman's brain."

Below we have a 1937 newspaper account (which you can read here) of a woman who had the right half of her brain removed in an operation. We are told that after this operation she had an IQ of 115, which is 15% higher than average. This is not what we would expect under the hypothesis that the brain is the source of the human mind. 

Below from a 1957 newspaper is another case of someone doing very well intellectually after the removal of the right half of the brain. 

In the news story here, we read that "Mark, of Palm Bay, Fla., is reading better and playing longer since the left side of his brain was removed in May." Note the exact words: "reading better," not reading worse. The news article here tells how a brain tumor of between 5 and 7 centimeters (about 2 to 3 inches) was discovered in the brain of the manager of a major league baseball team. The tumor was in the left front part of the brain, the same part reputed to be involved in executive functions. The manager had just successfully managed the American League team to victory in the All Star game. 

The news story here documents a very clear case of the preservation of memory after the removal of the left half of the cerebrum. We read of a 47-year-old man who had the left half of his cerebrum removed. We read this:

"Dr. Smith said the patient's memory of events before the operation 'was well preserved, much better than anyone expected.' Tests following surgery show Coe can perform many functions traditionally thought impossible after removal of the brain's dominant hemisphere. Immediately following surgery, Coe still had the ability to speak spontaneously."

A report like this does not merely contradict the claim that the brain is the source of the mind. It also contradicts the claim that the brain is a storage place of memories. 

The 1963 newspaper account here is entitled "Monkeys With Half a Brain." We read this:

"Fifty monkeys have had half of their brains removed. Their memories appear to be as complete as before surgery. Until this experiment was made, even doctors thought that such surgery would affect memory....Not only is memory retained; the monkeys are alert, intelligent, sociable, and have the same enthusiasm as doing things as before....What are some of things the team has discovered from observation of monkeys with half their brain removed? The monkeys remember how do things taught them before surgery. Such as which of two blocks of wood place under them has a reward under it -- a raisin or other food. Fears are recalled....'While the rhesus monkeys we test remember everything taught them before surgery, it takes them twice as long to learn something new as monkeys with both half of their brain,' explains Dr. Kruper. 'But the important thing is that they DO learn, even if it does take them longer.' "

I have by now published posts describing many different cases in which learned knowledge and episodic memories were well-preserved after the destruction of the left half of the brain. I have also published posts describing many other cases in which learned knowledge and episodic memories were well-preserved after the destruction of the right half of the brain. You can read about such cases in the text above and in my posts here, here and here. Such cases are all cases deserving the closest study by any neuroscientist claiming that brains store memories. The failure of most neuroscientists to collect and study cases of this type is a severe example of dereliction of duty, and a bad example of people failing to study whether a very important claim such people are making (the claim that brains store memories) is supported or discredited by observational evidence. 

Then there is the case of Sharon Parker. She is described in a 2003 news story entitled "Success of Nurse Who Lost Most of Her Brain." You can read the story here. We read this:

"When she was a baby, Sharon Parker's parents were told a rare and incurable condition meant she would not reach her fifth birthday.

She was left with only 15 per cent of her brain and there was little hope she could lead a normal life. But she defied the experts to become an astonishing success story.

Now 39, Mrs Parker is a nurse with a high IQ who is happily married with three children....She was diagnosed with congenital hydrocephalus - water on the brain - when she was nine months old. Doctors drained the liquid from her skull with a tube but her brain mass had been compacted in the outer edges of her skull, leaving a gaping hole in the middle....As a 16-year-old, she passed eight O-Levels and her IQ was later found to be 113, putting her in the top 20 per cent of the population.

The hydrocephalus has left her with a below-average short=term memory so she carries a notebook to remind herself to do things. However, tests have found that her long-term memory is better than average.

After leaving school, Mrs Parker decided to become a nurse and soon after starting her training, she met her future husband David, a builder who is now 45. The couple were married three years later and have three children...

She often participates in studies, including one recently in Ohio when she was examined by one of the world's leading experts on brain mass. Graham Teesdale, Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Glasgow, said she demonstrated how adaptable the brain can be even when it is incomplete. 'She shows how the brain has an immense capacity to cope and adapt,' he said. 'Some people with the same acute problem experience problems in thought processes but others are able to function totally normally.' "

She Didn't Seem to Need the Right Half of Her Brain, and Losing It Did Not Seem to Dim Her Memories

The 2021 paper "Preserved Cognition After Right Hemispherectomy" is another example of a case that should have been "the talk of the town" in the world of science, but which instead seems  to have received almost no attention from the press.  The paper by Mark Bowren, Jr,  Daniel Tranel and Aaron D. Boes tells us the fairly recent case of a woman who had almost the entire right half of her brain removed, but is apparently suffering very little cognitive damage from this removal. 

We read that the woman had a brain stroke at age 29, and that doctors treated her brain problem by removing almost all of the right half of her brain, in an operation called a hemispherectomy. We read that "In the days after surgery, she was described as alert, cooperative, and having normal language and interactions with her providers." We read no mention in the paper of a loss of acquired memories.  

The failure of scientists and doctors to study the exact memory effect of removing half of the brain is a major scandal of neuroscience. Whenever a person has a large portion of the brain removed, you have a great opportunity to test the hypothesis that memories are stored in the brain. This is because if it is true that human memories are stored in the brain, you should see some great loss of memories whenever a large chunk of the brain is removed.  But senselessly, neuroscientists and medical authorities seem to fail to test a loss of acquired memories after removal of large portions of the brain. 

Doing such a test would be quite easy. For example, a person could be given a test of the definition of 200 common words and could be given a multiple-choice test involving 200 commonly known facts; and such tests could be given both before and after the removal of the large amount of brain tissue. A sharp decrease in the score on such  tests would indicate that the person had lost much of the school-learned knowledge that he previously had. Also, a person could be asked to write a 1000-word autobiographical essay, both before and after the removal of the large amount of brain tissue. From the facts in such an essay written before the surgery, you could make a set of 25 or 35 questions and answers.  This set of questions and answers could be asked both before the surgery and after the surgery.  If it was found, for example, that the person given the brain surgery could no longer answer 10 of the autobiographical questions  that the person could answer before the surgery, this would be an indication that the brain surgery had caused the person to lose some of his episodic memories. 

Senselessly, doctors and neuroscientists fail to do tests like this before and after removing large portions of the brain.  Or, if they do such tests, they fail to publish them.  So we are left having to deduce how much of an effect the brain removal had on acquired memories, using other clues, and using the failure to report a loss of acquired memories and episodic memories as evidence that no great loss of such things occurred.  In the case of this woman, we can do that. The paper has failed to mention any loss of conceptual knowledge and has failed to mention any loss of episodic memories. From this we may infer  that there was no such loss.  

Also, the paper has stated this about the aftermath of the dramatic surgery in almost all of the right half of the brain was removed: " In the days after surgery, she was described as alert, cooperative, and having normal language and interactions with her providers."  The phrase "having normal language" is a very important indication that learned knowledge was preserved after almost all of the right half of the brain was removed.  Every time a person uses language in speech, that involves a use of acquired memories. Every single use of a particular word requires a memory of the definition of that word.  

Also we read that two months after the stroke, this patient CB had "intact expressive language and reading comprehension."  The paper does not tell us how many weeks after the stroke there occurred the removal of almost all the right half of the brain. But from the timeline given we know that this sentence refers to some time less than two months after the operation occurred.  Because you cannot learn a large fraction of a language in less than two months, we can presume that the patient had "intact expressive language and reading comprehension" directly after having had almost all of the right half of her brain removed, particularly given that we are told that the patient had "normal language" days after the operation. 

While the authorities involved failed to properly test for a loss of acquired knowledge and episodic memories, they did do a good job of testing the patient's cognitive skills at a time 5.3 and 7.8 years after the operation. They have given us the visual below, which neatly summarizes in a single visual the loss of brain tissue that occurred and the results of the cognitive tests:

As you can see from the visual above, the patient scored in the "Average" range for almost all of the 29 tests. In only two of the dozens of tests did the patient get an "Impaired" score: a test involving symbol search and a test involving copying figures.  We read this:

"Neuropsychological test performances (data collected 5.3 and 7.8 years after the onset of the stroke; figure)4 were notable for normal performance on most tests, including on most nonverbal tests, such as the Block Design test, the Matrix Reasoning test, the Visual Puzzles test, the Judgment of Line Orientation test, the Benton Visual Retention test, the Spatial Span test, and the Faces I and II tests. In addition, she performed within normal limits on several tests of executive functioning, including the Wisconsin Card Sorting test, part B of the Trail Making test, the Color-Word Interference test, and the Similarities test (a test of abstract verbal reasoning and comprehension of implied meanings). Regarding attention, she performed within normal limits on the Line Cancellation test, a test of hemispatial inattention (neglect), and there was no evidence of hemispatial inattention on other neuropsychological tests. Focused and complex attention were within normal limits on parts A and B of the Trail Making Test, respectively."

So how does this data fit in with the claim that your brain makes your mind? It doesn't.  The data defies such a claim.  The case also defies claims that the brain is the storage place of memories.  The paper has failed to mention any loss of acquired knowledge or episodic memories from the removal of half a brain, and has given us some indications that no big loss of that type occurred. 

A page describes a book by Antonio M. Battro, a book entitled "Half a Brain Is Enough" about a boy named Nico. The page states this: 

"Half a Brain is Enough is the extraordinary story of Nico, a three-year-old boy who was given a right hemispherectomy to control his severe intractable epilepsy. Antonio Battro, a distinguished neuroscientist and educationalist, describes his work with Nico over several years and explains how a boy with only half a brain has developed into a bright child with relatively minor physical and mental impairment. Eight years later, he runs and plays with only a slight limp. So far, there is no significant cognitive or affective disorder and it appears that Nico's so-called right-hemisphere skills--mathematics, visual arts, and music--have migrated to the left hemisphere. At school, he performs as a child of his age in arithmetic and music; only his draftsmanship and handwriting are poor for his age, but he has not lost his cognitive spatial ability. Battro and his colleagues have been studying and teaching Nico with computers and he is mastering written language with a word processor and is able to make good graphic designs with a computer. Nico performs well above average verbally, a left-brain skill."

Some People Our Neuroscientists Don't Want You to Know About

In this post I will discuss some subjects with dramatic case histories that tell you very important things about the human brain and the human mind. Neuroscientists fail to mention these subjects with such important case histories. So we can assume that today's neuroscientists don't want you to know about such cases, because the cases contradict the dogmas that neuroscientists like to teach, such as the dogma that your brain makes your mind, the dogma that your brain stores your memories, and the dogma that there cannot be mysterious psychic powers inexplicable through any type of brain activity. 

• Dandy's patients: The case of Dandy's patients are reported in the American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Jul., 1934), pages 500-503. We read this: "Dandy has completely removed the right cerebral hemisphere from eight patients. He has performed total extirpations of one or more lobes much oftener... There are tabulated below certain generalizations on the effects of removing the right hemisphere.... The operation was the complete extirpation of the right frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes peripheral to the corpus striatum. The weight of the tissue re moved varies, with the pathological conditions involved, from 250 to 584 grm [grams].Coherent conversation began within twenty-four hours after operation, and in one case on the afternoon of the same day. Later examinations showed no observable mental changes. The patients were perfectly oriented in respect of time, place, and person; their memory was unimpaired for immediate and remote events; conversation was always coherent; ability to read, write, compute, and learn new material was unaltered. Current events were followed with normal interest. There were no personality changes apparent; the patients were emotionally stable, without fears, delusions, hallucinations, expansive ideas or obsessions, and with a good sense of humor; they joked frequently. They showed a natural interest in their condition and future. They cooperated intelligently at all times throughout post-operative care and subsequent testing of function." How could the memory of patients be "unimpaired for immediate and remote events" if memories are stored in brains?
• Patient P. G. Described in the 1966 paper "Long-term changes in intellect and behaviour after hemispherectomy," Patient   P.G. had an IQ of 128 before the right half of his brain was removed. After the right half of his brain was removed, he scored 142 on the same IQ test, improving his score by 14 points. The paper tells us that this man with half a brain “obtained a university diploma after operation” and “has a responsible administrative position with a local authority.” If your brain makes your mind, how could taking out half of someone's brain cause their IQ to increase by 14 points, with an end result so far above average?
• Patient D. W. Described in the 1966 paper "Long-term changes in intellect and behaviour after hemispherectomy," Patient D.W.  had an IQ of 97 before the left half of his brain was removed. After the left half of his brain was removed, he scored 100 on the same IQ test, improving his score by 3 points.
• The French civil servant. The case is discussed here in a Reuters story entitled “Man lives normal life with abnormal brain.” Inside a normal brain are tiny structures called lateral ventricles that hold brain fluid. In this man's case, the ventricles had swollen up like balloons, until they filled almost all of the man's brain. When the 44-year-old man was a child, doctor's had noticed the swelling, and had tried to treat it. Apparently the swelling had progressed since childhood. The man was left with what the Reuters story calls “little more than a sheet of actual brain tissue.”  But this same man, with almost no functioning brain, had been working as a French civil servant, and had his IQ tested to be 75, higher than that of a mentally retarded person. The Reuters story says: “A man with an unusually tiny brain managed to live an entirely normal life despite his condition, caused by a fluid buildup in his skull.” The case was written up in the British medical journal The Lancet in a paper entitled “Brain of a white-collar worker.” It is as if the authors tried to make these facts be noticed by as few as possible, by giving their story the dullest title they could. 
• Christina Santhouse. In an article in the New Yorker magazine, we are told of a Christina Santhouse who had the right half of her brain surgically removed: “When I met her, she had taken her S.A.T.s and just finished high school, coming in seventy-sixth in a class of two hundred and twenty-five.”
• Beth Usher. Beth was mentioned in an article in the LA Times, which stated this: "How is it that 8-year-old Beth Usher of Storrs, Conn., can lose her left hemisphere, yet retain her large repertoire of knock-knock jokes? Beth’s memories survived not just the loss of brain tissue, but also the 32 days that she spent in a coma, the result of some brain stem swelling that occurred in response to the trauma of surgery. Shortly after Beth regained consciousness, her father began quizzing her about people and places from her past. Brian Usher didn’t get very far. 'Dad,' Beth interrupted, with a trace of impatience. 'I remember everything.'" Of course, there's a very easy answer to the question asked: the answer that memories are not actually stored in the human brain. 
• Borgstein and Grootendorst's 7-Year-Old. In 2002 in The Lancet these two published a paper "Half a Brain." They reported this on the child who had the left half of her brain surgically removed: "Though the dominant hemisphere was removed, with its language centres and the motor control for the left side of her body, the child is fully bilingual in Turkish and Dutch, while even her hemiplegia has partially recovered and is only noticeable by a slight spasticity of her left arm and leg. She leads an otherwise normal life."
• The Johns Hopkins 58 hemispherectomy patients. In a scientific paper ("Why Would You Remove Half a Brain? The Outcome of 58 Children After Hemispherectomy −−The Johns Hopkins Experience: 1968 to 1996") we read about surgeons at Johns Hopkins Medical School who performed fifty-eight hemispherectomy operations on children over a thirty-year period. At least eleven had the left half of the brain removed; and more had the right half removed. The paper states this: 
  "Despite removal of one hemisphere [i.e. one half of the brain], the intellect of all but one of the children seems either unchanged or improved....It is tempting to speculate, that the continuous electrical activity of these severely dysfunctional hemispheres interferes with the function of the other, more normal hemisphere. This might explain why motor function improves after hemispherectomy and why language recovers after removal of the dysfunctional left hemisphere, but does not seem to fully transfer before surgery. Perhaps it also partially explains intellectual improvement in these children after removal of half of the cortex. We are awed by the apparent retention of memory after removal of half of the brain, either half, and by the retention of the child’s personality and sense of humor."  An appropriate response to such observations would be not mere awe, but the questioning or discarding of belief dogmas such as the dogma that brains store memories (which cannot be found by microscopically inspecting brain tissue). 
• Kim Peek.  Kim Peek suffered from a lack of a corpus callosum, the bundle of fibers that connect the two hemispheres of the brain. Instead of this resulting in two minds in a single body (as we would expect from the "brains make minds" dogma), the result was a single mind and personality with an exceptional memory and astonishing calculation abilities. A newspaper report said Peek could accurately tell the contents of 12,000 books he had read, and the wikipedia article on him says he could "remember almost everything he had read." He could quickly tell strangers which day of the week they were born when they merely told him their birthdays. 
• Martel's boy. In a scientific paper ("Discrepancy Between Cerebral Structure and Cognitive Functioning") we read of a case of a boy who was "mentally unimpaired" until death (despite progressive loss of the senses), and who was found in an autopsy to have almost no brain. We read this: "Martel (1823) described a boy who died at the age of 10. During the first years of his life, he seemed healthy, but eventually, his health deteriorated considerably. He had severe headaches, gradually lost all his senses except hearing, developed fits, and became confined to his bed, but he nevertheless seemed mentally unimpaired until his death. His head appeared enlarged, and upon autopsy, apart from 'residues of meninges,' 'no trace of a brain' was found inside the skull (Martel, 1823, p. 20)." 
• John Lorber's patients. Lorber was a physician who had patients who lost the great majority of their brain due to a disease that replaces brain tissue with a watery fluid. Lorber was astounded to find that many of the patients had above-average intelligence, including a patient that had almost no brain but still had an IQ of 144. His patients are discussed here. 
• Masdeu's 44-year old. In the paper "Ventricular Wall Granulations and Draining of Cerebrospinal Fluid in Chronic Giant Hydrocephalus," Joseph C. Masdeu MD and others report a case of a 44-year-old woman with a huge fluid-filled hole in her brain, one that seemed to have replaced most of the tissue in her brain (judging from the photos in the paper). The paper reports the woman had an IQ of 98, worked as an administrator for a government agency, and could speak seven languages. 
• The 72-year-old woman with "asymptomatic hydrocephalus."  The woman's case is reported in the paper "Asymptomatic Hydrocephalus" which you can read here. We see brain scan photos showing the brain of a woman whose brain tissue was almost entirely replaced by watery fluid. But the woman is described as "asymptomatic," a word meaning "without symptoms."  We read this: "The patient lived independently...Her developmental history was unremarkable; she had finished high school and had worked in various retail jobs. When our team examined her, she was alert and oriented, and did not report headache, visual disturbance or cognitive changes; her neurologic examination (including a Mini-Mental State Examination) was normal." The MMSE examination referred to is a test of cognitive ability often used to detect dementia.  You can only get a "normal" score on such an exam by doing most of a series of mental tasks such as counting backwards by 7 and correctly naming the current date and remembering three random words you were asked to speak five minutes ago. 
• Egnor's Katie. In an article Michael Egnor MD tells of a patient he had named Katie who only "had a third of the brain that her sister had," her fraternal twin. Egnor tells us that Katie "sat and talked and walked earlier than her sister," "made the honor roll," and "will soon graduate high school."
• Antonio M. Battro's Nico. A page describes a book by Battro, a book entitled "Half a Brain Is Enough" about a boy named Nico. The page states this: "Half a Brain is Enough is the extraordinary story of Nico, a three-year-old boy who was given a right hemispherectomy to control his severe intractable epilepsy. Antonio Battro, a distinguished neuroscientist and educationalist, describes his work with Nico over several years and explains how a boy with only half a brain has developed into a bright child with relatively minor physical and mental impairment. Eight years later, he runs and plays with only a slight limp. So far, there is no significant cognitive or affective disorder and it appears that Nico's so-called right-hemisphere skills--mathematics, visual arts, and music--have migrated to the left hemisphere. At school, he performs as a child of his age in arithmetic and music; only his draftsmanship and handwriting are poor for his age, but he has not lost his cognitive spatial ability. Battro and his colleagues have been studying and teaching Nico with computers and he is mastering written language with a word processor and is able to make good graphic designs with a computer. Nico performs well above average verbally, a left-brain skill."
• Julie Klingelhofer.  Julie's case is described in the 1987 news article here. We read that even though Julie Klingelhofer "lost the left frontal, parietal, occipital and temporal lobes of her brain" during brain surgery for epilepsy, her IQ increased by 10 points after such a huge reduction of her brain tissue. 
• The Birjand Cyst patient:  This patient's case is reported in the paper "Giant Brain Hydatid Cyst in an Adult: A New Case Report." We are shown a photo of a giant hole in the patient's brain. We are told "The patient only complained of headache in the last two weeks and had no symptoms of visual or speech impairment." We are told the patient had no psychological problems. Surgery removed a fist-sized brain cyst that was 90 millimeters long and 40 millimeters wide. No mention is made of any mental or memory problem. 
• John Bly.  In The Metaphysical Magazine, on page 71 of Volume 5, the January-May 1897 volume, we have an astonishing report entitled "Brains Unnecessary." The report is based on an article in the newspaper The Philadelphia Ledger. We read that a Dr. S. S. Koser of Williamsport, Pa made a wonderful discovery, revealing "a man had unimpaired faculties without a brain." We read this: " Dr. Koser held a post-mortem examination of the remains of John Bly, of Watsontown. Bly, who was twenty years of age, for a long time suffered with a tumor, which grew into the very base of the brain, and occasioned his death...The most singular fact developed was that the entire brain had been hollowed out by the action of the tumor. The cavity was at least five inches in length, and was filled with pus. All that was left of the brain was a thin shell, composed of the tougher tissues where the brain matter gathers into nerves, which were less susceptible to the process of decay. When an incision was made in the shell the whole mass collapsed." We read this: "The circumstances which made the case almost unprecedented in the annals of medical science was the manner in which the patient retained his rationality and faculties under the circumstances. He had the senses of touch, taste, hearing, and smell, had very tolerable control of his locomotor muscles, could talk, and, in fact, was comparatively discommoded in no other way than by the loss of vision. His retention of memory was remarkable. He was able to memorize poems up to within two weeks of his death."
• The 500 gram cyst girl. This patient's case is reported in the paper "Primary Giant Cerebral Hydatid Cyst in an 8-year-old Girl." Doctor's discovered a giant brain cyst of 500 grams measuring 20 cm × 15 cm × 12 cm, and they said "in our search this is the largest brain hydrated cyst in the literature." This was probably more than half the size of her brain, since the average adult female brain is about 1200 grams, and since an 8-year-old female would have a brain of less than 1000 grams. Despite having so large a brain cyst there was "no history of neurological deficits" and "no changes in behavior." A month after the removal of the cyst, the patient is described as "vitally stable, thriving well, no complaints, no neurological deficits, and with the normal neurological examination." No mention is made of any mental or memory problem. 
  
• The asymptomatic man with a giant brain cyst. This patient's case is reported in the paper "Asymptomatic giant arachnoidal cyst." We read of "a 39-year-old right-handed man, with a high-school education, good social and job functioning, and good command of three foreign languages (English, Spanish, and, in part, Arabic), had a 3-year history of mild migraine without aura." We are told that "neurologic examination and standardized cognitive assessment revealed normal findings." The man was found to have a giant cyst "occupying the anterior two thirds of the left hemisphere." We see a photo showing a huge hole in the person's brain, so big that it took about one third of the person's brain mass. How could you lose one third of your brain and have no symptoms, if a person's brain makes his mind? 
• The bilingual guitar-player with near-normal language skills but little brain tissue. The title of the paper (which can be read here) was "Volumetric MRI Analysis of a Case of Severe Ventriculomegaly."  We have brain scan visuals showing that almost all of the 60-year-old man's brain was gone, with only a thin sheet remaining. But nonetheless the man's verbal IQ was a near-normal 88 (100 is average).  He could also speak two languages, and we are told he "plays guitar well."
• The high-school graduate with average grades but a mostly-destroyed brain.  We read about the woman in the paper "Colpocephaly in adults" which you can read here. We read of a 60-year-old woman who had the great majority of her brain destroyed by a congenital disease, apparently one present from birth or from early childhood. We read this: "Growing up, she had a reading learning disability; however, she graduated from high school with average grades, married in her 20s and had one child. She worked in a factory and most recently as a home health aide. At the time of presentation...She was alert, appropriately oriented and had normal language function." 
• The man with half a brain but superior intelligence. The newspaper here discusses the case of Bruce Lipstadt, Lipstadt had a hemispherectomy operation when he was five years old, an operation that removed the left half of his brain.  Operations of that type are only done when someone is being plagued by very severe seizures, and the seizures cannot be controlled by medication.  The operation was done because as a young boy Bruce was suffering from 10 to 12 seizures a day. We are told that despite having the left half of his brain surgically removed, Bruce can ride a bike, swim and play sports. We are told that Bruce got an A grade (the best grade) in a course on statistics at a university. We are told Bruce's speech is normal. We are told that "although not a genius, Bruce has superior intelligence." We are told that Bruce works as a traffic controller, and that next spring he will get a degree in sociology from a university. The 1976 newspaper article here gives us some more details on Bruce Lipstadt. We read that his IQ tests showed his verbal IQ to be 126, well above the average IQ of 100.
• Patient E.C.. Patient E.C. is discussed here, in a book chapter you can read online. which on page 109 tells of three cases of the removal of the left half of the brain, telling us that "speech and verbal comprehension were present immediately after left hemispherectomy in all three cases." We read nothing about any loss of knowledge or loss of episodic memories in any of these cases. In the discussion of patient E.C. we read of an adult patient who underwent a hemispherectomy that removed the left half of his brain. We read  that "immediately following hemispherectomy" the patient had an "ability to follow simple verbal commands."  We read on page 107 that "the patient spontaneously articulated words and short phrases fairly well immediately after the operation." As described in my post here, patient E.C. was given six weeks after his operation a Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, and performed well, and also performed well on such a test several months after his operation. The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test is effectively a test of the preservation of learned knowledge. These results indicated learned knowledge was well-preserved in patient E.C., despite the loss of half of his brain. The patient's case history constitutes evidence against the idea that memories are stored in brains. 
• The 57-year-old who described doctor's efforts to resucitate him while his heart had stopped.  The original  AWARE study authored by Sam Parnia and others did not succeed in its attempt to get people to identify images that were placed out of their sight in hospitals. But the study did report a case of a 57-year-old patient who successfully described the efforts of medical personnel to revive him while his heart was stopped. We read this: "The other, a 57 year old man described the perception of observing events from the top corner of the room and continued to experience a sensation of looking down from above. He accurately described people, sounds, and activities from his resuscitation (Table 2 provides quotes from this interview). His medical records corroborated his accounts and specifically supported his descriptions and the use of an automated external defibrillator (AED). Based on current AED algorithms, this likely corresponded with up to 3 min of conscious awareness during CA [cardiac arrest] and CPR [cardiopulmonary resuscitation]." The man said that a woman appeared in a high corner of the room, beckoning him to come up to her. He said that despite thinking that was impossible, he found himself up in the high corner of the room, looking down on the medical team trying to revive him. The man described specific details of the revival efforts, including the presence of a bald fat man with a blue hat, a nurse saying, “Dial 444 cardiac arrest,” his blood pressure being taken, a nurse pumping on his chest, a doctor sticking something down his throat, and blood gases and blood sugar levels being taken. Here we have a man apparently floating out of his body and viewing the efforts of medical personnel to restart his heart, something that should have been impossible if the human mind is produced by the brain. It is known that brains become electrically inactive within about 10 or 20 seconds of a person's heart stopping, and that people become unconscious only a few seconds after their heart stops. 
• Pam Reynolds. The late Pam Reynolds was a 35-year old with a large brain aneurysm when she underwent a very complicated operation that involved pumping out her blood and chilling her body temperature to only 60 degrees. Some twenty medical personnel worked on the complex operation. After the successful operation was over, Reynolds reported having a near-death experience during the operation. She reported floating out of her body, and witnessing her operation. She accurately reported details of some medical equipment that was used to cut her skull open, describing it as a “saw thing...like an electric toothbrush,” with “interchangeable blades” that were stored in “what looked like a socket wrench case.” She reported someone complaining that her veins and arteries were too small. These details were later verified. This was despite the fact that during the operation Reynolds eyes were covered throughout the operation, and her ears were plugged with earplugs delivering noise of 40 decibels and 90 decibels (not to mention that her body was chilled to a level at which consciousness should have been impossible). Reynolds said that she then encountered a tunnel vortex, saw an incredibly bright light, heard her deceased grandmother calling her, and encountered several of her deceased relatives. Reynolds says she was told by her uncle to go back through the tunnel, and to return to her body. These details were originally reported in the 1998 book Light and Death by Michael Sabom MD. That book includes diagrams of the medical equipment used to cut open Reynold's skull. They match her descriptions very well.
• Buckley's test subjects. A nineteenth century work Letters to a Candid Inquirer, on Animal Magnetism by William Gregory (professor of Chemistry at one of England's oldest universities) gives some very specific numerical details relating to clairvoyance in hypnotic trances (referred to below as "mesmeric sleep"):  "Major Buckley has thus produced conscious clairvoyance in 89 persons, of whom 44 have been able to read mottoes contained in nut-shells, purchased by other parties for the experiment. The longest motto thus read, contained 98 words. Many subjects will read motto after motto without one mistake. In this way, the mottoes contained in 4860 nut-shells have been read, some of them, indeed, by persons in the mesmeric sleep, but most of them by persons in the conscious state, many of whom have never been put to sleep. In boxes, upwards of 86,000 words have been read; 'in one paper, 371 words. Including those who have read words contained in boxes when in the sleep, 148 persons have thus read. It is to be observed that, in a few cases, the words may have been read by thought-reading, as the persons who put them in the boxes were present; but in most cases, no one who knew the words has been present, and they must therefore have been read by direct clairvoyance. Every precaution has been taken. The nuts, inclosing mottoes, for example, have been purchased of 40 different confectioners, and have been sealed up until read. It may be added, that of the 44 persons who have read mottoes in nuts by waking or conscious clairvoyance, 42 belong to the higher class of society; and the experiments have been made in the presence of many other persons. These experiments appear to me admirably contrived, and I can perceive no reason whatever to doubt the entire accuracy of the facts." 
• Alex, who did not start speaking until the left half of his brain was removed. A scientific paper describing the case says that Alex “failed to develop speech throughout early boyhood.” He could apparently say only one word (“mumma”) before his operation to cure epilepsy seizures. But then following a hemispherectomy (also called a hemidecortication) in which half of his brain was removed at age 8.5, “and withdrawal of anticonvulsants when he was more than 9 years old, Alex suddenly began to acquire speech.” We are told, “His most recent scores on tests of receptive and expressive language place him at an age equivalent of 8–10 years,” and that by age 10 he could “converse with copious and appropriate speech, involving some fairly long words.” Astonishingly, the boy who could not speak with a full brain could speak well after half of his brain was removed. The half of the brain removed was the left half – the very half that scientists tell us is the half that has more to do with language than the right half. 
  
• Patient BL: The paper "When only the right hemisphere is left: Studies in language and communication" reports on the case of a patient BL of "above normal intelligence" who underwent a left hemispherectomy at age five. Despite lacking the left half of his brain, BL "attended regular elementary and high school and graduated from college with a Bachelor's degree with a double major in business and sociology," he "played the baritone horn in a band," and worked "several years as an accountant in international business." The paper reports BL scoring normally on most of the cognitive tests he took. 
• The woman with half a brain and an IQ of 115. Her case is reported in the newspaper story here. 
• Patient EG. An article discusses her case: "When EG went in for an unrelated medical scan, she discovered she was missing her entire left temporal lobe...Despite missing a large chunk of her brain, EG was living a totally regular life... She could read normally, had a better-than-average vocabulary, and even spoke Russian as a second language."  A scientific paper describing her says, "She performed within normal range on all language assessment tasks...EG performed within normal range on both general cognitive assessments."
• The honors student (IQ=126) with only 3% to 10% of a brain. in the scientific paper "Long-Term Memory: Scaling of Information to Brain Size" by Donald R. Forsdyke of Queens University in Canada, he quotes the physician John Lorber on an honors student with an IQ of 126: "Instead of the normal 4.5 centimetre thickness of brain tissue between the ventricles and the cortical surface, there was just a thin layer of mantle measuring a millimeter or so. The cranium is filled mainly with cerebrospinal fluid. … I can’t say whether the mathematics student has a brain weighing 50 grams or 150 grams, but it’s clear that it is nowhere near the normal 1.5 kilograms." Forsdyke notes two similar cases in more recent years, one from France and another from Brazil.  Forsdyke says, "Three independent studies agree that there are, among us, people leading normal lives with approximately 5 % of the quantity of brain tissue found in others."
• Christopher who spoke 16 languages. On page 63 of the book Bright Splinters of the Mind by Beate Hermelin, we read this about a gifted subject: "Christopher can understand, talk, read, write and translate from Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Welsh." We then read about detailed tests of this subject. Cases such as that highlight the inadequacy of all neural explanations for human language abilities.   
• Stephan Ossowiecki. In the paper "An experiment with the Polish Medium Stephan Ossowiecki, which can be read here, E.J. Dingwall describes a very careful test of clairvoyance. Dingwall says that when alone by himself, he drew a crude picture of a bottle, writing on it, "The vineyards of the Rhine, Moselle and Burgundy produce excellent wine." He says he put the paper in an "opaque red paper envelope," which was "then inserted flap end first into an opaque dull black envelope, into which it fitted closely." He says, "This envelope, again unsealed, was then inserted flap end first into a brown paper envelope, into which it again fitted closely," and that "the flap of this envelope was then pasted down and a single seal affixed to the lowest part of the flap where it adhered to the envelope." He gave the envelope to another researcher, who took the sealed envelope to Stephan Ossowiecki, asking him to guess the contents before witnesses. The contents were correctly identified by Ossowiecki, without the package being opened. Dingwall (who was given back the package) states, "The envelopes appeared to be wholly intact and no evidence whatever was discernible that the packet had been opened. I had no doubt that the test was valid and that the knowledge of the contents had been ascertained by M. Ossowiecki through channels not generally recognised.... In discussing this case it is necessary to bear in mind that the result of the experiment showed, I think, quite definitely that coincidence can be wholly excluded." Similar feats were performed innumerable times in public exhibitions by the clairvoyant Alexis Didier, discussed here, who was often able to identify the contents hidden in locked or sealed boxes. 
• Mrs. Croad. The case of Mrs. Croad is told in my blog post here, which quotes at length from the original report here. Suffering from a variety of medical ailments, she was bedridden for 14 years, and reported as blind and deaf. But J. G. Davey M.D.  reported that the blind Mrs. Croad could read by touching ordinary text with her fingers, even after she had been heavily blindfolded with blindfolding including heavy cotton wadding. Davey also reported that Mrs. Croad could read the contents of letters inside sealed envelopes, and stated, "It is said also by those near and dear to her that such is Mrs. Croad's prevision that she has been known to have foretold my own visits to her ; what I mean is, that on my approach to the house she occupies and when at a distance from it, and unseen by anyone about her — in fact, not within sight— she has said, ' Dr. Davey is coming ; he will be here directly.' "  The case resembles the case of Mollie Fancher discussed next. 
• Mollie Fancher. Like Mrs. Croad, Mollie Fancher had a very bad vision problem. Fancher was described at various times as either blind or very nearly blind.  Mollie had suffered terrible injuries even worse than Mrs. Croad's, including a fall from a streetcar. Both Mrs. Croad and Mollie Fancher were bedridden, and Mollie stayed bedridden for decades. Witnesses very often reported that Mollie Fancher would announce who had arrived at her door, before she could even see who had entered (something also reported of Mrs. Croad).  Both Mollie Fancher and Mrs. Croad passed with flying colors the most stringent tests of clairvoyance while securely blindfolded. Both Mollie Fancher and Mrs. Croad went in and out of trances.  Both Mollie Fancher and Mrs. Croad had long periods of time in which they seemed to neither eat nor drink, with such an abstinence occurring for much longer periods with Mollie Fancher.  A newspaper called the Brooklyn Eagle published an account of Mollie Fancher which stated this: ""When in the quiet condition of rigidity, the patient is in a trance. Her eyes closed, the ears are dead to sound, the muscles cease to act, respiration is hardly perceptible, and once or twice a state of ecstacy indicative of mental unsteadiness has resulted. These seasons last for four days, or two hours each. When in this condition, she is powerfully clairvoyant in her faculties. She can tell the time by several watches variously set to deceive her, read unopened letters, decipher the contents of a slate, and repeat what 'Mrs. Grundy says,' by serving up the gossip of the neighborhood. She appears to possess the faculty of second sight to a remarkable degree." The Mollie Fancher case is described in my post here, and in the long book here.
• Mother Davis. The astonishing case of an old black woman named Mother Davis is told in B. F. Austin's extremely interesting book Glimpses of the Unseen, which has many very interesting similar accounts (the book can be read here).  Austin includes beginning on page 110 an account written by James L. Hughes, an inspector of public schools in Toronto, Canada. Hughes says that when he was twenty he met an old woman who looked strange, as if half-demented. The woman suddenly said, "Young man, I can tell anything you ever did or anything you want to know." Hughes started asking questions of this woman he had never before seen, and was astonished he got from her answers that were correct. The woman was able to correctly tell Hughes his last name, his father's name, his mother's name, how many sisters he had (seven), how many brothers he had (three), what he did before coming to Toronto (farming),  and what was the worst accident he had.  The old woman predicted that Hughes would become a teacher in the school he now attended, which turned out to be true, even though Hughes thought at the time that nothing could be more absurd. The woman predicted, "Before you take your tea to-night a gentleman will come to see you who will be a relation of yours by your marriage." The one man who came to Hughes before he took his tea turned out to be the cousin of the woman Hughes would marry. Hughes said that this Mother Davis "could read minds fluently," and that the accuracies of her prophecies about him were inexplicable, because "no foundation of even the most shadowy kind existed" by which she could logically base such prophecies. 
• Solomon Shereshevsky. Neuroscientists love to talk about people with a memory problem, but such neuroscientists almost never tell us about cases of exceptional memory. The reason is that such cases greatly worsen the explanatory shortfall of "brains store memories" claims, which cannot explain ordinary memory facts such as instant recall, instant learning and life-long preservations of memories, and which seem all the more "on the wrong track" when we consider exceptional memories. One such person with an exceptional memory was Solomon Shereshevsky, called "S" in the book The Mind of a Mnemonist by Alexander Romanovitch Luria. A scientific paper says this about Shereshevsky: "According to Luria, Shereshevsky could' 'easily remember any number of words and digits' and 'equally easily he memorizes whole pages from books on any subject and in any language.'  He could accurately quote information from a decade earlier, including tables of numbers and strings of nonsense words....What Luria learned was that Shereshevsky’s memory differed from that of the vast majority of individuals; time did not erode his memories. Neither did a new stimulus affect his memory of an earlier one." Similar cases of exceptional memory are described in my post here. 
• The patient of Smith and Sugar. In their paper "Development of above normal language and intelligence 21 years after left hemispherectomy," Smith and Sugar state that "Neuropsychologic follow-up studies of a 5-year-old boy who had left hemispherectomy for seizures showed that he had developed superior language and intellectual abilities." This was a boy who had the left half of his brain removed, but who ended up with "superior language and intellectual abilities."
• Patient B.M. Patient B.M. had the right half of her brain removed, in an operation called a right hemispherectomy. She  had difficulty recognizing faces, a problem called prosopagnosia. But according to a paper on her, her "intellectual and cognitive functions were otherwise normal or only slightly impaired," despite the loss of half of her brain. 
• Patient H.W. Patient H.W. is a man born without any corpus callosum, the bundle of fibers that connect the two hemispheres of the brain. Contrary to a prediction of the "brains make minds" theory (that such a shortfall should have caused great disfunction such as two minds in a single body),  Patient H.W. led a normal life and performed very well on a wide variety of tests of intellectual and psychological function. An article on the man is entitled "This Elderly Man Was Born With His Brain Hemispheres Disconnected. Did It Affect His Life? Hardly." The relevant scientific paper is here, and its title describes the man as one with "minimal neuropsychological impairment." 
•  Patient E.B. A Wired story on this patient says, "Researchers reported the remarkable case of a boy who recovered his language abilities to near-normal levels after losing almost his entire left hemisphere at age two and a half."  He had surgery to remove almost the entire left half of his brain. But he underwent rehabilitation, and “EB's language fluency improved remarkably over the ensuing two to three years until no language problems at all were reported at school or in the family home.” Now how is that possible? If the light (consciousness and intelligence) is all coming from the 100-watt light bulb (the brain), how do you get almost 100 watts of light when you slice the light bulb in half?
• Patient CG: The scientific paper here is entitled “A Lesion-Proof Brain? Multidimensional Sensorimotor, Cognitive, and Socio-Affective Preservation Despite Extensive Damage in a Stroke Patient.” Here is an astonishing report from the paper's abstract, describing a patient who seems mentally undamaged despite massive brain injury:
  
  
  At age 43, patient CG sustained a cerebral hemorrhage and a few months later, she suffered a second (ischemic) stroke. As a result, she exhibited extensive damage of the right hemisphere (including frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital regions), left Sylvian and striatal areas, bilateral portions of the insula and the amygdala, and the splenium. However, against all probability, she was unimpaired across a host of cognitive domains, including executive functions, attention, memory, language, sensory perception (e.g., taste recognition and intensity discrimination), emotional processing (e.g., experiencing of positive and negative emotions), and social cognition skills (prosody recognition, theory of mind, facial emotion recognition, and emotional evaluation).
  
  
  Below is the paper's startling discussion of the very well-preserved memory in this patient who had suffered heavy brain damage from two strokes:
  
  
  Even more striking are her mnemonic skills: her procedural and semantic knowledge is fully preserved, as shown in her smooth execution of various action routines (e.g., handling her cell phone, tying her shoe laces) and her intact naming and classification skills (e.g., she could flawlessly denominate all the objects she had thematically organized in different sections of her purse); furthermore, her declarative memory is extremely detailed for events which happened weeks, months, and even years ago. She could describe scenes from her childhood and adolescence, she meticulously narrated episodes occurring immediately before and after her strokes, she remembered the names, specialties, and suggestions of all her doctors, and she could recount details of dozens of books she had read throughout her life.
• Sharon Parker.  She is described in a 2003 news story entitled "Success of Nurse Who Lost Most of Her Brain." You can read the story here. We read this:

  "When she was a baby, Sharon Parker's parents were told a rare and incurable condition meant she would not reach her fifth birthday.

  She was left with only 15 per cent of her brain and there was little hope she could lead a normal life. But she defied the experts to become an astonishing success story.

  Now 39, Mrs Parker is a nurse with a high IQ who is happily married with three children....She was diagnosed with congenital hydrocephalus - water on the brain - when she was nine months old. Doctors drained the liquid from her skull with a tube but her brain mass had been compacted in the outer edges of her skull, leaving a gaping hole in the middle....As a 16-year-old, she passed eight O-Levels and her IQ was later found to be 113, putting her in the top 20 per cent of the population.

  The hydrocephalus has left her with a below-average short=term memory so she carries a notebook to remind herself to do things. However, tests have found that her long-term memory is better than average.

  After leaving school, Mrs Parker decided to become a nurse and soon after starting her training, she met her future husband David, a builder who is now 45. The couple were married three years later and have three children...

  She often participates in studies, including one recently in Ohio when she was examined by one of the world's leading experts on brain mass. Graham Teesdale, Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Glasgow, said she demonstrated how adaptable the brain can be even when it is incomplete. 'She shows how the brain has an immense capacity to cope and adapt,' he said. 'Some people with the same acute problem experience problems in thought processes but others are able to function totally normally.' "

• Patient HS4. This patient is discussed in the paper "Intrinsic Functional Connectivity of the Brain in Adults with a Single Cerebral Hemisphere.'" The paper discusses attempts to measure brain connectivity in patients who had half of their brain removed to treat very frequent seizures. The half-brain patient with the highest intelligence was patient HS4, with an IQ of 99 (according to the Supplemental Information of the paper). But this very patient had the smallest brain of the six half-brain patients. This patient HS4 had an average brain connectivity score of only .30, which is the same as one of the group of controls with normal brains, and less than the brain connectivity of the other group of controls with normal brains.   So the smartest person with half a brain (who had an IQ of 99) did not at all have any greater brain connectivity that can explain his normal intelligence with only half a brain. How can this subject HS4 have had a normal intelligence with only half a brain?  In this case, favorable brain rewiring or greater brain connectivity cannot explain the result.  

The half brain of subject HS4, IQ of 99, average brain wiring