by Oliver Sacks
This is my favorite Oliver Sacks book. Sacks relates stories about patients having neurological disorders. "Cupid's Disease" was a great chapter about a little old woman who heard music from the twenties in her head. It turns out, she contracted syphilis which went dormant for decades. When it began to re-emerge, she started having aural hallucinations. Her syphilis was cured, but only after Sacks assured her that she would continue to hear the music, as the damaged area would not heal. This was great for her - she wanted to keep the music and was refusing treatment if the antibiotics killed the music as well as the syphilis. This story was used in an episode of "House, M.D."
Another story from the book is about a man who had a stroke and could not sense his own leg. Lying in bed in the hospital, he reached down and felt a cold hairy leg in the bed with him. He became afraid and threw the leg out of bed - unfortunately, it was his own leg. He ended up on the floor with the "other person's" leg.
The format for each chapter is a case study written so that anyone can read it , followed by the neurological explanation for the disorder.
I really liked this book much better than Awakenings. How someone got that movie out of that book is a miracle. Awakenings - the book - is set up like the hat book - each chapter separate. Weaving the stories together was done by great screenwriting. Bravo.
This is my favorite Oliver Sacks book. Sacks relates stories about patients having neurological disorders. "Cupid's Disease" was a great chapter about a little old woman who heard music from the twenties in her head. It turns out, she contracted syphilis which went dormant for decades. When it began to re-emerge, she started having aural hallucinations. Her syphilis was cured, but only after Sacks assured her that she would continue to hear the music, as the damaged area would not heal. This was great for her - she wanted to keep the music and was refusing treatment if the antibiotics killed the music as well as the syphilis. This story was used in an episode of "House, M.D."
Another story from the book is about a man who had a stroke and could not sense his own leg. Lying in bed in the hospital, he reached down and felt a cold hairy leg in the bed with him. He became afraid and threw the leg out of bed - unfortunately, it was his own leg. He ended up on the floor with the "other person's" leg.
The format for each chapter is a case study written so that anyone can read it , followed by the neurological explanation for the disorder.
I really liked this book much better than Awakenings. How someone got that movie out of that book is a miracle. Awakenings - the book - is set up like the hat book - each chapter separate. Weaving the stories together was done by great screenwriting. Bravo.
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