¶ … Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales is a collection of case studies compiled by Oliver Sacks, a physician and professor of neurology who often writes about the interesting cases he comes across in his profession. This volume of twenty case studies reads more like a book of short stories. The people he describes are remarkable, unique examples of the strange and fascinating workings of the neurological mind. The case studies themselves are written in a fluid, engaging style that is accessible to all levels of readers, including not just other neurologists and medical professionals, but also the average layperson.
The book gets its unusual title from one of Sacks' cases. A man, a music teacher described only as Dr. P., has received a recommendation from his ophthalmologist to visit Dr. Sacks for problems ostensibly related to vision. Since the eye specialist is unable to determine the nature of Dr. P.'s problem, he refers him to Sacks for further examination. The man attends the first visit with Sacks with his wife. During the initial interview, Sacks notices that the man does not respond in a normal way to stimuli; for example, he seems to lean into Sacks with his ear instead of facing him directly with his eyes, as most patients normally do. This is an indication that Dr. P. tends to respond to things through listening, rather than through visual methods. When the first visit is just about to end, Dr. P. reaches towards his wife's head, an action that seems rather peculiar to Sacks. To the patient's wife, however, this action seems perfectly normal. Sacks, after...
This is a pivotal moment for Sacks, who decides to use this particular case study as the title for his book.
Further interactions with P. lead Sacks to conclude that P.'s way of interacting with the world is different from that of other people. He learns from Dr. P.'s wife that her husband often sings when he completes normal daily activities; to Dr. P. And to his wife, this is something that has become perfectly normal to them. The second visit with Dr. P. occurs at the patient's home. Here Sacks notices that Dr. P. has trouble visually identifying a rose that is attached to his lapel. He doesn't actually recognize it until he smells it. The olfactory sensation sparks P.'s recognition, and the association finally clicks. Based on these observations and on information given to him by Dr. P.'s wife, Sacks concludes that P. has compensated for his "visual" problem by relating to the world in other ways, primarily through music. Instead of seeing this as a deficiency to be cured, however, Sacks assesses the man as unusually creative in his adaptation to the real world. It is Sacks' ability to take on these unusual cases and to determine the roots of strange, apparently unexplainable neurological problems through musical and artistic "diagnoses" that inspired him to write this book.
Other stories include patients who have been assessed by other professionals as "retarded," but who are in fact gifted in other ways. Some of his patients have memory problems…
