A historical account of the debate over the cause of Alzheimer’s disease.
Alzheimer’s is both debilitating and near ubiquitous; if one lives long enough, Broxmeyer (Autism, 2014, etc.) observes, the odds are high that one will suffer some iteration of it. He also notes that Alois Alzheimer, the scientist after whom the disease is named, likely contributed as much as anyone to the general confusion regarding its precise nature. In 1901, Broxmeyer says, Alzheimer examined Auguste Deter—a woman suffering from diminished memory and behavioral abnormality—and seemed determined to avoid implicating tuberculosis even though the potential link between the two was clear. At the start of the 20th century, TB was troublingly common, but Alzheimer insisted that whatever infectious disease caused the newly discovered malady was itself altogether new. However, the author points out, German neuropathologist Oskar Fischer observed in autopsies that brains addled with Alzheimer’s disease also exhibited a germ associated with TB. Later, it would be discovered that tubercular microbes could generate amyloid fibrils very similar to those found in the Alzheimer’s-related plaques and seemed to affect the brain’s immune cells in the same way. The author is an internist and a medical researcher, and his double mastery of both the scientific minutiae and historical nuances of his subject matter is breathtaking. This is more than an account of a scientific debate—it’s also an examination of the sometimes-unempirical way that such debate proceeds, as it’s conducted by human beings with agendas of their own. The science in this book can be formidably complex, and although Broxmeyer seems to make a concerted effort toward clarity, his work isn’t for the casual layperson. As a result, although it’s a relatively short book—less than 200 pages of text—it is by no means a quick read. Nevertheless, readers with strong science backgrounds will be impressed by the author’s undeniable competence, as well as his journalistic approach to chartering the evolution of thought regarding one of our era’s most challenging diseases.
A difficult but rewarding look at a major scientific dispute.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4912-8735-4
Page Count: 190
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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Noted jazz and pop record producer Thiele offers a chatty autobiography. Aided by record-business colleague Golden, Thiele traces his career from his start as a ``pubescent, novice jazz record producer'' in the 1940s through the '50s, when he headed Coral, Dot, and Roulette Records, and the '60s, when he worked for ABC and ran the famous Impulse! jazz label. At Coral, Thiele championed the work of ``hillbilly'' singer Buddy Holly, although the only sessions he produced with Holly were marred by saccharine strings. The producer specialized in more mainstream popsters like the irrepressibly perky Teresa Brewer (who later became his fourth wife) and the bubble-machine muzak-meister Lawrence Welk. At Dot, Thiele was instrumental in recording Jack Kerouac's famous beat- generation ramblings to jazz accompaniment (recordings that Dot's president found ``pornographic''), while also overseeing a steady stream of pop hits. He then moved to the Mafia-controlled Roulette label, where he observed the ``silk-suited, pinky-ringed'' entourage who frequented the label's offices. Incredibly, however, Thiele remembers the famously hard-nosed Morris Levy, who ran the label and was eventually convicted of extortion, as ``one of the kindest, most warm-hearted, and classiest music men I have ever known.'' At ABC/Impulse!, Thiele oversaw the classic recordings of John Coltrane, although he is the first to admit that Coltrane essentially produced his own sessions. Like many producers of the day, Thiele participated in the ownership of publishing rights to some of the songs he recorded; he makes no apology for this practice, which he calls ``entirely appropriate and without any ethical conflicts.'' A pleasant, if not exactly riveting, memoir that will be of most interest to those with a thirst for cocktail-hour stories of the record biz. (25 halftones, not seen)
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-19-508629-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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