"Just as a military leader might blow up a bridge to prevent an enemy from crossing it, Bogen wanted to sever the corpus callosum to prevent the seizures from spreading."
— Haidt, Jonathan
Author
Place of Publication
New York
Publisher
Basic Books
Date
2006
Metaphor
"Just as a military leader might blow up a bridge to prevent an enemy from crossing it, Bogen wanted to sever the corpus callosum to prevent the seizures from spreading."
Metaphor in Context
A second division was discovered by accident in the 1960s when a surgeon began cutting people's brains in half. The surgeon, Joe Bogen, had a good reason for doing this: He was trying to help people whose lives were destroyed by frequent and massive epileptic seizures. The human brain has two separate hemispheres joined by a large bundle of nerves, the corpus callosum. Seizures always begin at one spot in the brain and spread to the surrounding brain tissue. If a seizure crosses over the corpus callosum, it can spread to the entire brain, causing the person to lose consciousness, fall down, and writhe uncontrollably. Just as a military leader might blow up a bridge to prevent an enemy from crossing it, Bogen wanted to sever the corpus callosum to prevent the seizures from spreading.
(p. 6)
(p. 6)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Haidt, Jonathan. The Happiness Hypothesis. New York: Basic Books, 2006. <www.happinesshypothesis.com>
Date of Entry
06/12/2009
