Describes the author's work with institutionalized patients at Mount Carmel Hospital and the dramatic effects of the drug L-DOPA on twenty patients suffering from encephalitic Parkinsonism.

A "celebration of what [writer and photographer] Bill Hayes calls 'the evanescent, the eavesdropped, the unexpected' of life in New York City, and an intimate glimpse of his relationship with the late [neurologist] Oliver Sacks"--Amazon.com.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 I have always been the youngest person in my class, even though I am now the oldest person I know. I thought I would die at forty-one, when I had a bad fall and broke a leg while mountaineering alone. I was assailed by memories of gratitude and regret. #2 At eighty, the specter of dementia or stroke looms. But for many, it is a time of leisure and freedom. They can...

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 Charles Darwin was a botanist, and he grew up in a family that had a special, tender feeling for plants. He grew up in a house with extensive gardens filled not only with flowers but with a variety of apple trees crossbred for increased vigor. #2 Darwin was not a botanist, but he was preeminently an investigator who was concerned with the how and why of plant structure...

Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat brings together more than two dozen narratives of patients with many different neurological impairments. The narratives illuminate medical details of the diseases while illustrating how those diseases play out in a patient's thoughts and actions, bringing a more human aspect to the ailments…

Neurologist Oliver Sacks's 1985 book “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat”, challenges the impersonal approach doctors took to patient care and paved the way for a new literary genre: popular science. At the time of its publication, neurologists and physicians relied mainly on clinical studies and their “own” expertise to set the course of treatment. Sacks found this inhumane and developed a very different approach. He provides rich,...

Amy's blind masseur Virgil becomes her new boyfriend. When a miraculous operation retores Virgil's sight, the two discover that even the most wonderful of life's gifts can come with a price and that both of them must now look at the world in a whole new light.

"A groundbreaking book that upends conventional thinking about autism and suggests a broader model for acceptance, understanding, and full participation in society for people who think differently. What is autism: a devastating developmental disorder, a lifelong disability, or a naturally occurring form of cognitive difference akin to certain forms of genius? In truth, it is all of these things and more--and the future of our society depends on our...