 The second major line of thought relates the hippocampus to memory.Although it had historical precursors, this idea derived its main impetus from a famous report by American neurosurgeon William Beecher Scoville and British-Canadian neuropsychologist Brenda Milner describing the results of surgical destruction of the hippocampi when trying to relieve epileptic seizures in an American man Henry Molaison, known until his death in 2008 as "Patient H.M." The unexpected outcome of the surgery was severe anterograde and partial retrograde amnesia; Molaison was unable to form new episodic memories after his surgery and could not remember any events that occurred just before his surgery, but he did retain memories of events that occurred many years earlier extending back into his childhood.This case attracted such widespread professional interest that Molaison became the most intensively studied subject in medical history.