The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales
by Oliver Sacks
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Book Summary Information
Author: Oliver SacksEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1998-04-02
ISBN: 0684853949
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Touchstone
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780684853949
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Book Reviews of The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales
Book Review: An enjoyable book on clinical neuroscience for anyone from the layperson to the neuroscientist!
Summary: 5 Stars
"But none of us had ever encountered, even imagined, such a power of amnesia, the possibility of a pit into which everything, every experience, every event, would fathomlessly drop, a bottomless memory-hole that would engulf the whole world" (22).
Oliver Sacks' "The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat" is an interesting foray into the bizarre neurological disorders present in the world of clinical neuroscience (as it was in the 1980s). Sacks alternates between a light and serious tone throughout most of the book to discuss the lives of these patients. However, as the quote above implies, Sacks does not stray from highlighting the importance of studying these disorders and the extreme lack of understanding and frustration along with the few victories he achieved while treating these disorders.
BRIEF SYNOPSIS WITH COMMENTARY
The first section of the book, "Losses" introduces the title character: "The Man who Mistook his wife for a Hat", a man with visual agnosia whose visual system had deteriorated or been damaged to such an extent that he could no longer even distinguish the face of his wife without using some abstract shapes or features of her face as a guideline. He goes on to talk about Jimmy the amnesiac who lost the ability to form new memories (whom the quote in the beginning of this review is about). He discusses "the disembodied lady" who had lost all her proprioception, the sense of movement, but was able to somewhat reintegrate into society by using auditory and visual feedback systems to replace the loss of function in her vestibular system, made possible by the plasticity of the nervous system. He writes about a few more interesting patients such as a man who could not recognize his own leg and patients who imagined a limb where none existed. The point of this section was to describe some neurological disorders that cause a loss in a normal brain function and the consequences this can have on the victim.
"She continues to feel, with the continuing loss of proprioception, that her body is dead, not-real, not-hers...She can find no words for this state...She has no words, no direct words, to describe this bereftness, this sensory darkness (or silence) akin to blindness or deafness. She has no words, and we lack words too. And society lacks words, and sympathy, for such states" (30). This quote, about the "disembodied lady," underscores one of the main points of this book - our lack of understanding about uncommon neurological disorders, many of which don't even have words to describe it.
The next part of the book is about "Excesses" or a superabundance of some brain function. As Sacks explains, excess brain function such as mania has been relegated to psychiatry and physiological bases for these disorders have been seldom studied. He discusses patients such as Mr. Thompson who suffered from memory loss but would try to make up for it by making up a number of stories and identities that he interacted with. Each of the patients in this section suffered from an excess of brain function and often sought help from psychiatrists before seeing Sacks. After reading this section, the reader can definitely understand the importance of looking at all neurological disorders from a physiological basis before dismissing its victims as "crazy."
In the third part of the book, "Transports", Sacks writes about seemingly psychological conditions in which the patient's perception is altered. Mrs. O'C, who awoke from a dream to hear old songs being played in her head, without stopping - a case which was ultimately revealed to be caused by mini-temporal lobe seizures rather than some sort of madness. Sacks displays evidence that each case has an organic component and thus is squarely in his realm of clinical neuroscience. The reader thus gains an appreciation of importance of neuroscience as a science which has tremendous potential to elucidate the causes and cures for these disorders. The recent explosion of neurological discoveries and therapies developed on them (the `90s have been dubbed the "Decade of the Brain") shows that Sacks was correct in his enthusiasm and hope for neuroscience.
The final part of the book is called "The World of the Simple," in which Sacks explores the clinical neuroscience of mental retardates. The story of Jose was particularly striking - a budding artist who could not speak and was categorized as an "idiot" by his attendant. Sacks was able to discern that Jose was much more than a simple "Xerox machine" as his attendant had also claimed by observing his drawing and his drawing process. Sacks places a great deal on emphasis on the fact that those with mental disabilities may just be extraordinarily atypical, that is, they may be unable to understand the abstract concepts of the world yet be gifted in understanding the world as symbols. One of the most striking quotes from the book and one that really helps the reader understand Sacks motivation was what Sacks revealed about Jose after writing about his account: "...could he, with his peculiarities, his idiosyncrasy, do drawings for fairy tales, nursery tales, Bible tales, myths?...[However], as the stars stand, he will probably do nothing, and spend a useless, fruitless life, as so many other autistic people do, overlooked, unconsidered, in the back ward of a state hospital" (115).
Each patient account usually also has a "postscript" in which Sacks tries to present the relevance the account has to the broader world of neuroscience. For instance, in part three "Transports, Sacks discusses the importance of the bizarre case of Mrs. O'C: "Such cases are exciting and precious, for they serve as a bridge between the physical and personal, and they will point, if we let them, to the neurology of the future, a neurology of living experience" (72).
OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
Sacks has succeeded in providing accounts of diseases which the reader will probably not have heard of, or if they have, as in the case of cerebral palsy, Sacks will explain what is different from the normal disease. Each account is made short and sweet, providing the reader with the condition the patient suffers from, his symptoms, prognosis, diagnosis, and most importantly, Sacks commentary.
I believe that Sacks' style of using clinical tales to describe these neurological disorders help the reader learn more than if it was just presented in a textbook manner. As neurological studies confirm, people learn more when they are emotionally involved in what they are being taught, and Sacks' presentation of these stories in a well rounded but first person view allows readers to sympathize and even empathize with the patients, though not enough to let the reader lose focus of whatever disorder Sacks' is trying to describe. Sacks' is essentially able to put a face to a disease and thus make it more relatable and understandable. The only criticism that I can levy at Sacks is that he sometimes fails to fully expound upon important terms and ideas when discussing his tales, such as "proprioception" and "plasticity"- but even the layperson can understand these terms by using a dictionary and some context from the book. I recommend this book to anyone looking for an entertaining and informative read - just keep in mind that you may require a dictionary or encyclopedia to understand a few of the terms if you have no background in neuroscience!
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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