Michael Drews Team #1 The Terminal Man April 12, 1972

Best known for his novel , American best-selling author Michael Crichton ​ ​ excelled in writing science fiction, medical fiction, and thriller novels. Crichton was born in

Chicago in 1942 and wrote his first successful novel () in 1969. Since ​ then, and up until his death in 2008, Crichton wrote, produced, and directed countless works. His M.D. from the Harvard Medical School certainly provided him with the expertise to write intelligent and believable science fiction novels, as many of his works revolved around biotechnology. One novel in particular -- The Terminal Man -- dealt with the benefits ​ ​ and consequences of mind control.

In The Terminal Man, Harry Benson started suffering psychomotor epilepsy after ​ ​ being in a car crash in 1969. The seizures he experienced would impair his responsiveness and awareness of his environment and they would often cause him to blackout and later wake up with no memory of the last few hours. Leading up to March of 1971, he had beaten three different people during his episodes; as a result, on that day in March, he was admitted to the Neuro-Psychiatric Service of University Hospital. A brand new type of surgery was to be done on him by John Ellis and Robert Morris and would involved putting a

‘brain pacemaker’ inside of Harry. This neurostimulator used microelectrodes to stimulate the nervous system, hopefully reducing the number and severity of his seizures in the process. Although not everyone at the hospital supported this surgery, the team went ahead with the operation. The following day, two computer technicians performed some simple tests on Harry, by activating each of the forty implanted electrodes, one at a time.

One of the electrodes ended up stimulating a sexual pleasure for Harry and after a day of monitoring, it was found that his seizures occurred at a higher frequency than before. Harry would involuntarily have a seizure in order to receive that shock of pleasure. Soon after,

using a wig Harry was able to escape during a time when he was unsupervised. Combined with his more frequently occurring seizures, during which he would blackout and become dangerous, it became a top-priority to return Harry back to the hospital.

Taking place in the early 1970s, the state-of-the-art technology at the time certainly affected the society in the book. The head of the Neuro-Psychiatric Service, Roger

McPherson, said that through the invasive surgery, they “created a man with not one brain but two” (Crichton 95). McPherson was referring to Harry’s damaged biological brain and his new computer brain, which is “intended to control the biological brain” (Crichton 95). As a result, Harry’s “biological brain is the peripheral terminal -- the only peripheral terminal -- for the new computer” (Crichton 95). Mcpherson goes on to state that “In one area, the new computer brain has total control. And therefore the patient’s biological brain, and indeed his whole body, has become a terminal for the new computer” (Crichton 95). This is exactly the reason why the decision to perform the operation was not unanimous amongst the hospital staff. This machine-human interaction and synthesis was both unfamiliar and unpredictable. While there were some benefits to neurostimulation, the untested field also had the potential to lead to catastrophic consequences. One of the doctors, Morris, eventually comes to realize that neurostimulator patients could become addicts. Morris remembered a certain case of a Schizophrenic man who could stimulate himself at will. This man did it so much, though, that it caused even further brain damage. The concept of mind control is central to this book and just as important is its message that we must be careful, conscious, and ready for the consequences.

Today, “mind control” -- or rather, neurostimulation -- is better understood than it was in The Terminal Man and it has been utilized to greater positive effect than in the novel. ​ Neurostimulation technology has been used to immensely help those who are severely

paralyzed and those with damaged sensory organs. Hearing aids, artificial vision, artificial limbs, and brain-machine interfaces all rely on neurostimulation for complete integration with the person’s body. Deep brain stimulation has helped those with movement disorders like tremor, dystonia, and Parkinson’s disease. Spinal cord stimulation treats chronic and intractable pain. Cochlear implants give deaf people the ability to partially hear. Visual prosthetics are also in development to provide some vision to those with lost photoreceptors in their retina. Clearly, being able to simulate a neuron and stimulate the brain has led to many significant technological and medical advances. When most people think of “mind control”, they imagine someone having complete control over someone else’s thoughts and movements; today, this is hardly the case and the ability to somewhat control the mind has improved the quality of life of countless individuals.

Works Cited

Crichton, Michael. The Terminal Man. New York: HarperCollins-Harper, 2009. Print. ​ ​ Wikipedia contributors. "Neurostimulation." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia,

The Free Encyclopedia, 12 Jan. 2016. Web. 15 Feb. 2016.