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I read The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat many years ago. I've intermittently followed him since. He also wrote the book Awakenings that the movie was based on.
For those who don't know, he was a neurologist who was "face-blind" himself (meaning he was unable to distinguish faces, we all looked alike to him. Oddly, portraitist Chuck Close is also face-blind). He wrote about it here for the NewYorker.
He will be missed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/s...d-author-explored-the-brains-quirks.html?_r=0
As a medical doctor and a writer, Dr. Sacks achieved a level of popular renown rare among scientists. More than a million copies of his books are in print in the United States, his work was adapted for film and stage, and he received about 10,000 letters a year. (“I invariably reply to people under 10, over 90 or in prison,” he once said.)
Dr. Sacks variously described his books and essays as case histories, pathographies, clinical tales or “neurological novels.” His subjects included Madeleine J., a blind woman who perceived her hands only as useless “lumps of dough”; Jimmie G., a submarine radio operator whose amnesia stranded him for more than three decades in 1945; and Dr. P. — the man who mistook his wife for a hat — whose brain lost the ability to decipher what his eyes were seeing.
Describing his patients’ struggles and sometimes uncanny gifts, Dr. Sacks helped introduce syndromes like Tourette’s or Asperger’s to a general audience. But he illuminated their characters as much as their conditions; he humanized and demystified them.
For those who don't know, he was a neurologist who was "face-blind" himself (meaning he was unable to distinguish faces, we all looked alike to him. Oddly, portraitist Chuck Close is also face-blind). He wrote about it here for the NewYorker.
He will be missed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/s...d-author-explored-the-brains-quirks.html?_r=0
As a medical doctor and a writer, Dr. Sacks achieved a level of popular renown rare among scientists. More than a million copies of his books are in print in the United States, his work was adapted for film and stage, and he received about 10,000 letters a year. (“I invariably reply to people under 10, over 90 or in prison,” he once said.)
Dr. Sacks variously described his books and essays as case histories, pathographies, clinical tales or “neurological novels.” His subjects included Madeleine J., a blind woman who perceived her hands only as useless “lumps of dough”; Jimmie G., a submarine radio operator whose amnesia stranded him for more than three decades in 1945; and Dr. P. — the man who mistook his wife for a hat — whose brain lost the ability to decipher what his eyes were seeing.
Describing his patients’ struggles and sometimes uncanny gifts, Dr. Sacks helped introduce syndromes like Tourette’s or Asperger’s to a general audience. But he illuminated their characters as much as their conditions; he humanized and demystified them.
