Man with No Memory | The Accident | 1

American Innovations

Wondery

Steven Johnson, History, Kids & Family, Education For Kids, Science

4.6 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2021

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Even as recently as the early 1950s, we didn’t understand that there were different types of memory, or how the brain processed and stored memories. Then, in 1953, a radical surgery by a reckless doctor gave us tremendous insights into how human memory works. Those scientific gains came at a terrible cost, however. The surgery left the patient, Henry Molaison, a profound amnesiac -- completely incapable of forming new memories. This is his story.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to American Innovations,
0:03.6	Add Free on Amazon Music, download the app today.
0:07.0	Join Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts, or the Wondery app,
0:11.5	to listen to American Innovations early and add free.
0:15.0	It's a warm summer evening in 1935,
0:27.0	on a residential street in Manchester, Connecticut.
0:29.5	Nine-year-old Henry Molason holds his breath as his father winds up
0:34.0	in hurls of baseball, high in the air like a pop fly.
0:37.5	Henry settles under the ball and watches it descend,
0:40.5	holding his baseball glove over his head.
0:43.5	He flinches as the ball bounces off the heel of his glove
0:46.5	and rolls onto the grass.
0:48.5	Hey, keep your eye on the ball, son.
0:50.5	I'm trying, Dad.
0:51.5	Henry picks up the ball and whips it back, with his eyes cast down.
0:55.5	It sails high towards their front windows.
0:58.5	Henry cringes, but his father, Gus leaps and grabs it with a grin.
1:03.5	Now, Henry, squat down and play catcher.
1:05.5	Let me get a few pitches in.
1:07.5	Suddenly, Henry's mom, Lizzie, calls out from the front steps.
1:11.5	Gus, no, he hates that.
1:13.5	Henry, you don't have to play catcher if you don't feel like it.
	...

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