Emily Beswick reviews Oliver Sacks’ classic, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and reflects on the life and works of the eccentric neurologist.
For myself and so many others with an early interest in psychology, Professor Oliver Sacks’ books presenting interesting and complex cases of his career, were my first introduction to neuropsychology.
Sacks was born in London in 1933, and completed his medical training as a clinical neurologist at the University of Oxford before moving to the United States for the majority of his career. He kept working as a professor until his death, aged 82, in 2015. Sacks was a brilliant doctor but became a household name through his popular science books on science and society.
Sacks’ best-selling novel, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, is my personal favourite in his long bibliography. Despite being published almost four decades ago, this collection of case studies remains relevant. These stories, and the surrounding discussion, continue to challenge our understanding of ourselves and science.
By thinking of the body as a complex machine with connections between the distinct parts, we can establish how this ‘machine’ functions by observing what happens when things start to go wrong.
Although ostensibly a collection of other people’s stories, the peculiar title references prosopagnosia, an unusual condition which Sacks reported being affected by himself. Prosopagnosia is also known as face blindness and is an impairment to the ability to recognise faces and facial expressions, even those of your closest friends or your own face in the mirror. The choice to reference a condition which Sacks personally experienced, as well as managed in his clinic, alludes to the semi-autobiographical nature of the book as the writer presents case histories in the context of his own clinical career.
A particular story that always stuck in my mind was that of an individual with Parkinson’s disease in the Chapter “On the Level”, who tilted to the side as he walked. He had been told by those around him that he was walking with his body at around a twenty-degree angle but had no awareness of this himself, until he was shown a video. As Sacks explains, this inability to walk upright was due to impaired integration of the visual, proprioceptive, and labyrinthine systems. Disintegration of these systems is characteristic of Parkinsonism. In his clear and accessible way of presenting complex concepts, Sacks describes this system using an analogy proffered by his patient; the body’s spirit-level.
It was reading about cases like these and working with similar patients myself that continued my interest in neuroscience, and particularly neurodegeneration. One of the most fascinating aspects of neurodegenerative disease is that by watching how the systems of the body ‘fail’, or degenerate, we can improve our understanding of how they actually work. By thinking of the body as a complex machine with connections between the distinct parts, we can establish how this ‘machine’ functions by observing what happens when things start to go wrong. Through a better understanding of how we operate, and how this can be impaired by disease or injury, we can develop appropriately targeted interventions.
This theme is common throughout The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and Sacks’ other works. He outlines the presenting features of each case, explains the reasoning behind the clinical judgements and contextualises this within our knowledge of the body, whilst remaining empathetic with these patients and their families who live with the day-to-day reality of these conditions.
Whilst Professor Sacks’ career as an author and neurologist are well-worth highlighting in themselves, I chose to focus on him specifically over Pride month due to his personal story. Sacks lived through a time when homosexuality was still criminalised in many parts of the United States, and so he faced conflicting emotions over his own sexuality. From his time as a student at Oxford, to bodybuilder at Muscle Beach, avid motorcyclist and open-water swimmer, Sacks’ personal life was vibrant. However, it was only later in life that Sacks was able to be open about his homosexuality in his 2015 memoir On the Move: A Life in which he discussed his relationship with his long-term partner, writer Bill Hayes.
Bill Hayes explored their life and love together in his own book Insomniac City: New York, Oliver and Me. It was an homage to New York, the city that they shared, and his grief after Sacks’ death, quite a different direction from neurology case studies. A brief, but beautiful, exploration of queer love in the city that never sleeps. In addition to Sacks’ extensive bibliography itself, this book is also one I’d recommend for anyone interested in the life and career of the eminent and eccentric Oliver Sacks.
This article was written by Emily Beswick and edited by Ailie McWhinnie. Interested in writing for WiN UK yourself? Contact us through the blog page and the editors will be in touch!
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