The Punk Who Misplaced His Life for a Job

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

I bought this book in 1998 the summer before I went to college at University of Connecticut. I was a Psychology major. My sister had mentioned the book, a Psych major as well, and I picked it up. The book descriptively tells the case stories of patients of Dr. Sacks with neurological disorders. The stories are told with a casual tone and don't require prior knowledge to understand the material. Some of the more notable stories were:

"The Disembodied Lady" A woman who couldn't move unless she visually saw the body part and "willed it to move." This particular story stuck with me many years as it said there was a causal relationship with individuals taking high quantities of vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine) which is one of the vitamins that you are told to take to lose weight. I was so sufficiently scared by this idea that I nearly had a panic attack if I ever even took something with B6.

"The Man Who Fell out of Bed" The patient was paralyzed on one side of his body and had a disconnect in his brain where he was unable to recognize the paralyzed limbs as his own. He would wake up in the middle of the night terribly upset because there was "a severed human leg" in the bed with him. Which was of course his own leg.

"The Lost Mariner" The study of person with no long term memory. His condition is called retrograde amnesia. His memory was based on his short term memory of 15-30 seconds and memories from twenty years ago. There is a description of a pretty jarring scene when the man who thinks he is nineteen years old looks into a mirror and sees a 41 year old man. His anguish and fear last only a few minutes though and he's forgotten the exchange has even taken place.

Why am I writing about a book I bought eight years ago?

I took my big sis to see the play "The Man Who" for her 30th birthday. "The Man Who" is based on "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat." There were four actors on the stage at all times who would trade off roles playing either a patient or a doctor. Three out of the four actors were incredibly talented and were able to draw me into their new characters that they assumed in each of the seventeen scenes. If you are in the Boston area I'd suggest going to see it. If for nothing else it is something new and a conversation piece. I enjoyed the play perhaps more because I was familiar with the book and enjoyed the subject matter, but it wasn't too exclusive. The numerous scenes do a fine job of keeping your interest. The rest of the crowd seemed to have good feelings about it as well, though there was lot of people laughing at the odd behaviors of these stricken people. I found that really grating and more than a little inappropriate. Perhaps some people were expecting a comedy out of this. As far as I know, neurological diseases are not funny. I hate retards like that.