Charcot's Lesson

Francesco Brigo is a clinical neurologist with expertise in epilepsy, epidemiology, research methodology, evidence-based medicine, and the history of neuroscience. He has authored or co-authored more than 500 full-length scientific articles and co-chairs the Standards and Best Practice Council of the International League Against Epilepsy.

• Preface.- Part I. Methodological Aspects.- 1. Charcot, the Master: Who Was He and What Can We Learn from Him?.- 2. I Can’t Believe My Eyes (And Actually I Should Not)! Don’t Get Confounded by Confounders!.- 3. What to Expect from Experience?.- 4. "The Theory Is Good, but That Doesn't Prevent Reality from Existing".- 5. Induction and Deduction: Taken in the Loop.- 6. Nothing but a Domino Effect: Is Causation Really That Simple?.- 7. Let’s Think About It! Metacognition of Clinical Thinking.- 8. The Razor That Does Not Split Hairs.- 9. Useless and Yet So Useful: Why We Should Keep Visiting Our Patients.- 10. Step by Step: Approach to the Diagnosis.- 11. Not All Errors Are Created Equally: Biological Variability and Systematic Errors (Bias).- 12. I’m Never Wrong! Logical Fallacies and Cognitive Errors.- 13. Evidence Is Much but Not All: Rethinking Evidence-Based Medicine.- 14. How to Critically Appraise a Medical Article.- Part II. Theory and Practice.- 15. Critical Appraisal of a Therapy Article: Randomized Controlled Trial.- 16. Critical Appraisal of a Therapy Article: Non-Randomized Controlled Study and Uncontrolled Study.- 17. Critical Appraisal of a Diagnosis Article.- Part III. Epilogue.- 18. Beware of Masters (Yes, Even of Charcot)! The Importance of Distrusting Everything and Everyone.- Index.