And Finally: Matters of Life and Death

The eminent retired neurosurgeon, Dr. Henry T. Marsh, who introduced and popularized awake craniotomy under local anesthesia in England and became a Commander of the British Empire, is also an extraordinarily talented writer. Depending on whether one’s reference point is British or Norwegian, Dr. Marsh has been lauded as the Boswell, as well as the Knausgaard, of neurosurgery. Since his retirement from clinical work in 2014, Marsh has graced us with a trilogy of memoirs,^1,2  one of which was reviewed in the October 2022 issue of Anesthesiology.³  His most recent volume, titled And Finally: Matters of Life and Death, is the story of how he became a patient. It is, however, much more wide-ranging and nuanced, exploring with elegance and unflinching honesty such thorny topics as ageing, the mystery of consciousness, and other neuroscientific enigmas, as well as such philosophical themes as the meaning of...