The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

Sacks, Oliver. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales. New York: Touchstone 1970. Print

First Sentences:

Dr. P. was a musician of distinction, well-known for many years as a singer, and then, at the local School of Music, as a teacher.

It was here, in relation to his students, that certain strange problems were first observed.....Not only did Dr. P. increasingly fail to see faces, but he saw faces when there were no faces to see: genially, Magoo-like, when in the street he might pat the heads of water hydrants and parking meters, taking these to be the heads of children....


Description:

Such an unusual title for a book, but Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat refers to an actual event. The patient, Dr. P described above, as he left Sacks' neurological consulting office, put on his coat and then reached over to his seated wife, grabbed her head, and tried to yank it up to put onto his own head as if it was his hat. Earlier, Dr. P had been unable to identify the name or purpose of his shoe as well as a common glove which he guessed was "a container of some sort" although a container for what he couldn't say.

You might think Dr. P and other highly unusual patient afflictions described in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat are fiction, but they are all fascinatingly true. Each chapter describes a patient presented to Dr. Sacks in his capacity as a neurological consultant in New York City hospitals, nursing homes, and chronic care facilities. The patient exhibited such behavior as:

• A gray-haired man unable to remember anything since his military days when he was nineteen years old. He refused to recognize himself in a mirror as an old man and did not believe a photo taken of the Earth from the moon was possible since in his mind man had not been to the moon, He currently could not remember anything after only a few seconds, including people he had just met, conversations he'd held, or events.

•  A hospitalized patient who, looking down to the foot of his bed, saw a grotesque leg sitting next to him. When he continually tried to toss it out of the bed, he fell along with it, repeatedly not recognizing it as his own healthy leg attached to his body.

•  A strapping, healthy woman who, just before a minor gall stones operation, mysteriously and suddenly lost complete sense of her body. She could not get information from any part of herself head to toe, thus making her unable to sit up, control her fluttering hands, or even keep her mouth from hanging open.

• A ninety-year-old woman who has become "frisky" and "euphoric" about men ... the results of an illness seventy years ago.

Dr. Sacks is at first as puzzled by these cases as we readers are. They are simply so odd that he even wonders to himself whether these people are faking their symptoms. But he tests them closely, reviews the literature, and consults with other experts in various fields until he comes up with a working hypothesis for each case. Unfortunately, often there is no treatment much less a cure for these patients, but Dr. Sacks does provide some reassurance that the person is not crazy, just suffering from an extreme case of a neurological mis-functioning.

I was absolutely riveted by these case histories. Dr. Sacks is a extraordinary observer of people and clear relater of facts and symptoms to weave each afflicted patient into a captivating story. You want so much for there to be a magic pill for each person suffering these calamitous behaviors, but unfortunately, Dr. Sacks finds that often there is not.

A great read from the fascinating symptoms, the mystery behind the causes, to the unending pursuit of treatment. Highly recommended.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Sacks, Oliver. An Anthropologist on Mars.   

Any of Sacks' books would be a great follow-up to learn about more unusual cases of neurological diseases. In addition to these patient histories, this book presents a bit more about Sacks' life and thoughts on his profession. He is a wonderful writer, scientific, neutral, and clear in his descriptions of mind-bending problems and patients.