“If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye; but if he has lost a self—himself—he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it.”
Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales
Dr. Oliver Sack’s book “The man who his wife for a hat” is a very beautifully written book on the neurological disorders experienced by the patients he had come across in his life as a doctor. There is a number of factual tales about the peoples who had been victims of neurological conundrums that affected their lives in many ways. Some of such disorders are something which we often come across in our daily life too. I would highly like to recommend this book to those peoples who would like to know about the physical and mental disabilities of peoples. This book was released way back in 1985 but it is still one of the most read books in the world.
This book is split into four different parts which are Losses”, “Excesses”, “Transports”, and “The World of the Simple”. Out of all these parts, I was really fascinated by Dr. Oliver’s revealing thoughts and opinions about Korsakoff syndrome and Tourette syndrome in the first two parts. Despite all the disabilities they have, some patients do prefer to live with their disabilities as they do seem to be enjoying their sudden new world. I had a good laugh when going through the case study of a sixty-three-year-old woman when treated with L- Dopa for her Parkinson’s disease exhibited increase libido with high sexual urge which was very unknown to her when she was young. Strangely she seems to like this state.
Korsakoff Syndrome
Jimmy G an intelligent young man had difficulty remembering most of his past events and his present-day to day events. This has impacted his health in finding meaning, satisfaction, and happiness in the middle of his constant forgetting of all the events in the present and past. In a quest to provide an explanation for this disorder, Dr. Sack labeled Jimmy G to be suffering from Korsakoff syndrome. It is an amnestic disorder due to the heavy consumption of alcohol which causes the deficiency of vitamin B1 (Thiamine) in our body. I had witness peoples suffering from mild memory loss due to the prolonged usage of alcohol but had never been aware of such syndrome to date.
Tourette syndrome
Reading closely I felt like I had seen few incidences of Tourette’s syndrome in my own life which we often relate with the spiritual world and the shamanistic world of spirit. I am not in a position to comment much on the relationship between Tourette syndrome and the world of spirit but I was very much impressed by Dr. Oliver Sack’s thoughts on this syndrome.
This syndrome was named after neurologist Georges Gilles de la Tourette involving repetitive movements and unwanted sounds which can become violent and blur at times.
Then there is a part where you will be moved beyond borders to go through the sad accounts of an Indian girl “Bhagawhanti” admitted to a hospital where doctor Oliver Sack works with a surging malignant tumor in her brain. She was suffering from constant seizures and in between these seizures, she would remember the music, dance, and parts of her village back in India. She seems to relish these moments of seizures. later at the end of one of the incidents, she said “I am dying … I am going back to where I came from”.
So there are numerous case studies by Doctor Oliver Sack which on reading will give you moments of happiness, sadness, strangeness, and even petrifying accounts of various patients encounter. I am highly suggesting this book for everyone to go through once in their life.