{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02120627926191132, 'fraction_numerical': 0.001101624896722666, 'mean_word_length': 5.093959731543624, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Great and Desperate Cures: The Rise and Decline of Psychosurgery and Other Radical Treatments for Mental Illness

psychology since the late nineteenth century, and Broca's demonstration of cerebral dominance for language. I wish to argue here that the metaphysical basis of laterality is that it might allow this Gordian knot to be cut, providing a via media between the Scyllan anarchy of qualitative differences, and the Charybdean failure of theoretical models based solely on quantitative differences. Laterality models, particularly those which specify a genetic basis for differences, allow a finite and, one hopes, a relatively small number of different types of cognitive or neural organization; analytical tractability is therefore restored. The high price of this tractability is the near inability to derive conclusions from the individual case study (so much beloved of the recent decade of neuropsychology), since the principle of double dissociation, the corner stone of most lesion studies, requires the powerful assumption of ceteris paribus, and with qualitative differences one cannot assume that all other things are indeed equal. A crucial exception would be if accurate genotyping of qualitatively different types were possible. Within the pragmatic, empirical research programme the essential core contains arguments as to the precise form of the genetic model (and here I differ from Annett, preferring a conventional single gene model to her complexities and the reader is referred to her recent review (Annett, 1986) for a fair description of our differences). The differences lie also in the additional hypotheses which we each find necessary to account for the manifest failure of any genetic model to be fitted directly to the extant data. To answer questions such as 'How do we measure and define handedness?', 'How do performance and preference relate?', 'Are twins and singletons similar?' etc. the theories make their own specific assumptions and predictions, and it is here, rather than at the core, where most of the battles are being fought at present. Should any of these hypotheses fail, the core theories can still survive. For those to be tested we must ultimately await inevitable advances in molecular biology, which surely will one day determine with precision whether or not the DNA of right-handers and left-handers is systematically different. For then one theory will clearly be proven beyond any reasonable doubt to be superior to all others. Dr Annett's book is a long (probably overly long) summary of her work. It not only describes her model, which it does very fully, but also attempts to give introductory accounts of brain evolution, and of genetics: it is probably fair to say that anyone who requires these introductions should probably not be reading the book, especially given that the accounts are not particularly well done. The review of the right shift theory is comprehensive, and would be very suitable for a novice reader. For anyone who has followed the trail over the past decade there is little that is new, most having been more succinctly described in the many previous research papers. Many obscure aspects of the theory are, however, expanded upon, and therefore clarified. In summary, Annett's right shift theory has been an important and influential attempt at making sense of the mystery of the inheritance of handedness and cerebral dominance, and that attempt is of broad significance for neuropsychology as a whole. This book will provide a useful source of reference for any one coming to the field afresh who wishes to understand Dr Annett's theories.