The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales is a 1985 book by neurologist
Oliver SacksOliver Wolf Sacks, CBE, FRCP , is a British neurologist residing in New York City. Sacks is the author of several bestselling books, including several collections of case studies of people with neurological disorders...
describing the case histories of some of his patients. The title of the book comes from the
case studyA case study is one of several ways of doing research whether it is social science related or even socially related. It is an intensive study of a single group, incident, or community...
of a man with
visual agnosiaVisual agnosia is the inability of the brain to make sense of or make use of some part of otherwise normal visual stimulus and is typified by the inability to recognize familiar objects or faces...
.
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat became the basis of an
opera of the same nameThe Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is a one-act chamber opera by Michael Nyman to an English-language libretto by Christopher Rawlence, adapted from the case study of the same name by Oliver Sacks by Nyman, Rawlence, and Michael Morris...
by
Michael NymanMichael Laurence Edward Nyman, CBE is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, perhaps best known for the many movie scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's...
, which premiered in 1986.
The book comprises 24 essays split into 4 sections which each deal with a particular aspect of brain function such as deficits and excesses in the first two sections (with particular emphasis on the right hemisphere of the brain) while the third and fourth describe phenomenological manifestations with reference to spontaneous reminiscences, altered perceptions, and extraordinary qualities of mind found in "retardates".
The individual essays in this book include:
- "The Lost Mariner", about Jimmie G., who has lost the ability to form new memories
Short-term memory refers to the capacity for holding a small amount of information in mind in an active, readily available state for a short period of time. The duration of short-term memory is believed to be in the order of seconds...
due to Korsakoff's syndromeKorsakoff's syndrome , is a brain disorder caused by the lack of thiamine in the brain...
.
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales is a 1985 book by neurologist
Oliver SacksOliver Wolf Sacks, CBE, FRCP , is a British neurologist residing in New York City. Sacks is the author of several bestselling books, including several collections of case studies of people with neurological disorders...
describing the case histories of some of his patients. The title of the book comes from the
case studyA case study is one of several ways of doing research whether it is social science related or even socially related. It is an intensive study of a single group, incident, or community...
of a man with
visual agnosiaVisual agnosia is the inability of the brain to make sense of or make use of some part of otherwise normal visual stimulus and is typified by the inability to recognize familiar objects or faces...
.
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat became the basis of an
opera of the same nameThe Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is a one-act chamber opera by Michael Nyman to an English-language libretto by Christopher Rawlence, adapted from the case study of the same name by Oliver Sacks by Nyman, Rawlence, and Michael Morris...
by
Michael NymanMichael Laurence Edward Nyman, CBE is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, perhaps best known for the many movie scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's...
, which premiered in 1986.
The book comprises 24 essays split into 4 sections which each deal with a particular aspect of brain function such as deficits and excesses in the first two sections (with particular emphasis on the right hemisphere of the brain) while the third and fourth describe phenomenological manifestations with reference to spontaneous reminiscences, altered perceptions, and extraordinary qualities of mind found in "retardates".
Content
The individual essays in this book include:
- "The Lost Mariner", about Jimmie G., who has lost the ability to form new memories
Short-term memory refers to the capacity for holding a small amount of information in mind in an active, readily available state for a short period of time. The duration of short-term memory is believed to be in the order of seconds...
due to Korsakoff's syndromeKorsakoff's syndrome , is a brain disorder caused by the lack of thiamine in the brain...
. He can remember nothing of his life since the end of WWII, including events that happened only a few minutes ago. He believes it is still 1945 (in the late 70s and early 80s), and seems to behave as a normal, intelligent young man aside from his inability to remember most of his past and the events of his day-to-day life. He struggles to find meaning, satisfaction, and happiness in the midst of constantly forgetting what he is doing from one moment to the next.
- "The President's Speech", about a ward of aphasia
Aphasia is an acquired condition in which there is an impairment of any language modality. This may include difficulty in producing or comprehending spoken or written language....
cs and agnosiaAgnosia is a loss of ability to recognize objects, persons, sounds, shapes, or smells while the specific sense is not defective nor is there any significant memory loss...
cs listening to a speech given by an unnamed actor-president, "the old Charmer," presumably Ronald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States and the 33rd Governor of California .Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan moved to Los Angeles, California in the 1930s...
. Many in the first group were laughing at the speech, and Sacks claims their laughter to be at the president's facial expressionA facial expression results from one or more motions or positions of the muscles of the face. These movements convey the emotional state of the individual to observers. Facial expressions are a form of nonverbal communication...
s and tone, which they find "not genuine." One woman in the latter group criticizes the structure of the president's sentences, stating that he "does not speak good prose."
- "The Disembodied Lady", a unique case of a woman losing her entire sense of proprioception
Proprioception is the sense of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body...
(the sense of the position of parts of the body, relative to other neighbouring parts of the body).
- "On The Level", another case involving damaged proprioception. Dr. Sacks interviews a patient who has trouble walking upright and discovers that he has lost his innate sense of balance
Equilibrioception or sense of balance is one of the physiological senses. It helps prevent humans and animals from falling over when walking or standing still.-Normal balance functioning:...
due to Parkinson'sParkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that often impairs the sufferer's motor skills, speech, and other functions....
-like symptoms that have damaged his inner ears; the patient, comparing his sense of balance to a carpenter's spirit levelA spirit level or bubble level is an instrument designed to indicate whether a surface is level or plumb. Different types of spirit levels are used by carpenters, stone masons, bricklayers, other building trades workers, surveyors, millwrights and other metalworkers, and serious...
, suggests the construction of a similar level inside a pair of glasses, which enables him to judge his balance by sight.
- "The Twins", about autistic savants. Dr. Sacks meets twin brothers who can neither read nor perform multiplication, yet are playing a "game" of finding very large prime number
In mathematics, a prime number is a natural number which has exactly two distinct natural number divisors: 1 and itself. The first twenty-six prime numbers are:An infinitude of prime numbers exists, as demonstrated by Euclid around 300 BC. The number 1 is by definition not a prime number...
s. While the twins were able to spontaneously generate these numbers, from six to twenty digits, Sacks had to resort to a book of prime numbers to join in with them. This was used in the film House of CardsHouse of Cards is a 1993 drama film directed by Michael Lessac and starring Kathleen Turner and Tommy Lee Jones. It follows the struggle of a mother to reconnect with her daughter who has been traumatized by the death of her father.-Synopsis:...
starring Tommy Lee JonesTommy Lee Jones is an American actor and director.His film roles include federal marshal Samuel Gerard in The Fugitive and U.S. Marshals, the villain "Two-Face" in Batman Forever, the mysterious Agent K in the Men in Black films, Western peace officers Woodrow F. Call in Lonesome Dove and Ed Tom...
. The twins also instantly count 111 dropped matches, simultaneously remarking that 111 is three 37s. This event, with toothpicks in place of matches, and other of Dr. Sacks's observations on autistic savants, were used in the film Rain ManRain Man is a 1988 comedy-drama film written by Barry Morrow and Ronald Bass and directed by Barry Levinson. It tells the story of an abrasive yuppie, Charlie Babbitt, who discovers that his estranged father has died and bequeathed all of his multimillion-dollar estate to his other son, Raymond, an...
, starring Dustin HoffmanDustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor who has had an active career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He first drew critical praise for the 1966 Off-Broadway play Eh? for which he won a Theatre World Award and a Drama Desk Award. This was soon followed by his breakout movie role as Ben...
. This story has been questioned by Makoto Yamaguchi, who doubts that a book of large prime numbers could exist as described, and points out that reliable scientific reports only support approximate perception when rapidly counting large numbers of items. Autistic savant Daniel TammetDaniel Paul Tammet is a British prodigious Savant gifted with a facility for mathematical and natural language learning. He was born Daniel Corney , the first of nine children, to working-class parents in London...
points out that the twins provided the matchbox and may have counted its contents in advance, noting that he finds the value of 111 to be "particularly beautiful and matchstick-like".
- "The Dog Beneath the Skin", concerning a 22-year-old medical student, "Stephen D.", who, after a night under the influence of amphetamines, cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system and an appetite suppressant...
, and PCPPhencyclidine , also known as angel dust and other street names, is a recreational, dissociative drug formerly used as an anaesthetic agent, exhibiting hallucinogenic and neurotoxic effects...
, wakes to find he has a tremendously heightened sense of smellOlfaction refers to the sense of smell. This sense is mediated by specialized sensory cells of the nasal cavity of vertebrates, and, by analogy, sensory cells of the antennae of invertebrates...
.
In popular culture
An Indian theatre company, performed a play
The Blue Mug, based on the book, starring
Rajat KapoorRajat Kapoor is an Indian actor and director born in 1961. He has acted in many successful films like Dil Chahta Hai, Monsoon Wedding, Corporate and Bheja Fry...
,
Konkona Sen SharmaKonkona Sen Sharma , born December 3, 1979, is an Indian actress. She is the daughter of filmmaker Aparna Sen...
,
Ranvir ShoreyRanvir Shorey is an Indian actor and former VJ. Since making his debut in Ek Chotisi Love Story , he has starred in a number of high profile films such as Jism and Lakshya...
and
Vinay PathakVinay Pathak is an Indian actor and a theater person. He is known as a new revolution in Indian Cinema along with Ranvir Shorey, Rajat Kapur, Abhay Deol, who are tagged as actors of a new genre...
.
The title of
KisschasyKisschasy is an Australian rock band formed in Victoria, Australia, in 2002. Since forming, their line-up has consisted of lead vocalist Darren Cordeux, bassist Joel Vanderuit, guitarist Sean Thomas and drummer Karl Ammitzboll....
's third album Seizures was chosen after lead singer Darren read the book.
See also
- Proprioception
Proprioception is the sense of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body...
- The Man Who
The Man Who is the second album by the Scottish indie pop band Travis, and the album that brought them into international recognition. It was first released in late spring 1999, and reached #1 in the UK albums chart, and #8 in Australia...
, an album by the ScottishScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
indie popIndie pop is a genre of alternative rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the mid 1980s, with its roots in the Scottish post-punk bands on the Postcard Records label in the early '80s such as Orange Juice and Josef K and the dominant UK independent band of the mid eighties, The Smiths...
band TravisTravis are a Scottish alternative rock band from Glasgow, comprising Fran Healy , Dougie Payne , Andy Dunlop and Neil Primrose...
named after this book.