An award-winning investigative journalist explores the scientific, ethical and, above all, human dimensions of one of the most important stories in the history of medicine. In the summer of 1953, a renowned Yale neurosurgeon performed a novel operation on an epileptic patient. The operation helped control intractable seizures, but it also did something else: it left the patient amnesic for the rest of his life. Dittrich excavates the lives of Dr. Scoville and his most famous patient, and spins their tales together in thrilling, kaleidoscopic fashion, uncovering troves of well-guarded secrets, and revealing how the bright future of modern neuroscience has dark roots in the forgotten history of psychosurgery, raising ethical questions that echo into the present day.