My Thoughts On Oliver Sacks’ The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat:

Why did I read this book?
Quite frankly, the reason why I chose to read this book was to mention it in my personal statement as a way of substantiating my wider reading. However, I have been pleasantly surprised by how much I have gained from reading this book, not only gaining a deeper understanding of medicine but also the human condition.


What did I make of the title?
I did not know what to expect. I thought that the title was used for comedic effect. I certainly didn’t think that the title was meant to be taken literally, which made Dr P’s condition, visual agnosia, all the more extraordinary.
Why did Oliver Sacks write this book in the first place?
Although I am not well-placed to answer this question as a reader, I still think that it is an important question to consider in order to understand why this book is influential in medicine.
1: Approach to neurology
Oliver Sacks offers a unique approach to neurology: to be equally interested in diseases and in people’s stories of how they cope with them. With the rise of technological and quantitative medicine, I feel that his message is now more important than ever so that healthcare professionals don’t overlook things like case histories which, according to Sacks, can never be rendered obsolete. Not only do case histories present the effects of disease but they also highlight the realities of being a patient, which is crucial in advancing medical treatments and leading the switch to patient-centred care.


2: Approach to the physician-patient relationship
Sacks emphasises the need for patients and physicians to be coequals, learning from each other to arrive at new treatments. This is certainly being advocated in modern healthcare. Perhaps this was another key message the author wanted to share with his readers.
3: Narrative Medicine
The author might also have wanted to revive the dying art of narrative medicine by publishing this book. As mentioned earlier, the fact that medicine is becoming far more technical means that there are far more scientific studies and not many works of medical literature being published. However, the works of medical literature we still have today serve to remind healthcare professionals of the need to acknowledge medicine as an art as well as a science.

Interesting Concepts:
Sacks introduces the reader to a few interesting concepts which I want to share with you.
1: Paradox of illness:
Illness doesn’t just have to relate to a loss of function. Illness can also be attributed to an excess of function, which can lead to feeling ‘too well’ and having too much energy. Sacks makes use of examples to illustrate this point. He mentions Tourette’s Syndrome and Parkinson’s Disease. They are both neurological disorders that are caused by having too high or too low levels of dopamine in the brain. This is certainly interesting from a pathological perspective and makes me appreciate the need for balance in the body even more.
2: World of the Simple:
Some of the people featured in Sacks’ book are unable to perform basic tasks yet they have an endearing characteristic that makes up for everything they lack. For example, the author mentions twin brothers who are able to have conversations which only involve prime numbers despite being unable to understand basic arithmetic.


3: Compensating for a loss of function
According to neuroplasticity, the brain can compensate for a loss of function caused by damage to certain areas of the brain by relying more heavily on other unaffected areas.

Sacks introduces the reader to a woman named Christina, who is unaware of where her body parts are located due to losing her proprioception. To compensate for this loss, Christina has to rely more heavily on her vision to identify the relative positions of her limbs- which goes to show that not all hope is lost, even in extraordinary circumstances.


N.B:

Please note that this is my final blog post. This blog will be handed over to a new group of students so that the current bloggers and I can focus our efforts on A Level exams. Thank you so much for reading all of our posts in the past few months. We hope you have gained as much as we have from reading them!

By Kumaran Rajaratnam.

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