The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales
by Oliver Sacks

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales
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Book Summary Information

Author: Oliver Sacks
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1998-04-02
ISBN: 0684853949
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Touchstone
Product features: Accessories:

Book Reviews of The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales

Book Review: Fascinating, informative, compassionate
Summary: 5 Stars

Oliver Sacks spent his career as a clinical neurologist. Somber, comical, encouraging, dispiriting, outlandish, but always fascinating. These could all describe the patient case histories presented by Sacks in his book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. The author is at the top of his game in medical expertise, yet manages to go far beyond the mere mechanics of neurology and embrace the mysterious humanity of his patients.

Sacks divides his book into four different sections. The first, entitled Losses, deals with neurological deficits. An example of this would be one woman's terrifying loss of proprioception, detailed in the chapter called The Disembodied Lady. Part two of his book explores the opposite spectrum of neurology, Excesses. He starts this section of the book with an interesting look at the pathophysiology of Tourette's Syndrome manifested in one of his patients, nicknamed Witty Ticcy Ray. The third part of the book delves into the strange world of Transports. Transports refers to massive alterations in one's perceptions and inner experiences. One chapter chronicles the experiences of a woman who couldn't escape hearing loud radio-quality Irish music in her head. Many would be tempted to simply write her off as crazy, but Sacks patiently and diligently discovers the neurological culprit behind the unwanted musical renditions. Another fascinating case history in this section of the book is the amphetamine-induced hyperosmia of a young medical student. His weeks-long experience with a "dog's nose" truly makes one wonder about the vibrant everyday realities that often escape our physical senses. The fourth and final part of this book, The World of the Simple, contains four chapters describing the experiences of the mentally retarded. After reading through his interactions with these patients, I'm fairly convinced he dubbed this section The World of the Simple with tongue in cheek. The mentally retarded are far too often dismissed as being bound to a mundane existence. Sacks shatters this misconception as he takes a personal interest in his patients and shows them to be both capable and rich in deep inner experiences. This section focuses primarily on autism.

I believe that one of the biggest catalysts to compassion is knowledge. Without a proper medical diagnosis these patients could have been carelessly relegated to the ranks of the crazy, the inferior, the hopeless, as if such ranks even existed. Point being, dedicated and caring neurologists such as Oliver Sacks are working hard through their writings and their clinical practice to bring us to an understanding of the delicate underpinnings behind our human existence. A humble appreciation of human frailty is key in treating these cases with compassion and understanding. Anyone who reads this work by Oliver sacks will grow leaps and bounds in such understanding.

Summary of The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales

In his most extraordinary book, "one of the great clinical writers of the 20th century" (The New York Times) recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders. Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat tells the stories of individuals afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations: patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people and common objects; who are stricken with violent tics and grimaces or who shout involuntary obscenities; whose limbs have become alien; who have been dismissed as retarded yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents.

If inconceivably strange, these brilliant tales remain, in Dr. Sacks's splendid and sympathetic telling, deeply human. They are studies of life struggling against incredible adversity, and they enable us to enter the world of the neurologically impaired, to imagine with our hearts what it must be to live and feel as they do. A great healer, Sacks never loses sight of medicine's ultimate responsibility: "the suffering, afflicted, fighting human subject."

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