Word: brained
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Alzheimer's disease was first identified in 1906 by German Physician Alois Alzheimer. His patient, a 51-year-old woman, suffered loss of memory, disorientation and later, severe dementia. After her death, Alzheimer conducted an autopsy on her brain and found the two distinctive characteristics of the disease: tangled clumps of nerve fibers and patches of disintegrated nerve-cell branches. Because Alzheimer's patient was relatively young, AD was at first considered a disease of middle age; similar symptoms in elderly people were simply regarded as a natural consequence of aging. Today this view has been discarded. Even...
Little real progress has been made in the treatment of AD since Alzheimer's day, and even diagnosis remains difficult. The only way to be absolutely certain that a patient has the disorder is to examine the brain after death. Thus, the diagnosis must be approximated by a careful process of elimination. Through CAT scanning and other tests, the physician gradually determines that the patient has not suffered a series of small strokes, does not have Parkinson's disease, a brain tumor, depression, an adverse drug reaction or any other possible cause of dementia. If all tests...
Scientists are experimenting with a number of other treatments for AD. Among them: piracetam, a drug used by European doctors to treat memory disorders, head injuries and learning disabilities in children; and naloxone, a chemical that blocks the action of opiate-like substances in the brain. The results so far are not encouraging. Admits Price "There is no effective therapy...
Several months later Langston read an article in a medical journal about a chemist who had killed himself after contracting Parkinson's-like symptoms from a dose of artificial heroin. From a report analyzing the dead chemist's brain, Langston found that the heroin involved contained an additive similar to the one in the bad batch of heroin he had been studying. The mysterious ingredient, a chemical known as MPTP, had moved from the blood into the brain and damaged the same area affected by Parkinson's disease. No other substance is known to do that. Last April Dr. Irwin...
...heroes of these tales have one thing in common: both come from Vicksburg, Miss. So does Hubert ("Baby") Levaster, a doctor hooked on booze, drugs and depravity, who packs a .410 shotgun pistol (its shells stuffed with popcorn) and steers the brain-damaged French Edward around the pro tennis tour. "Levaster banged him a hard blow against the heart. He saw French come alive and turn a happy regard to the court." What happens when these three characters mix, along with their assorted relatives, friends and lovers, is deliberately unbelievable; in extending two stories into a sketchy novel, Hannah creates...