Oliver Sacks is the poster-boy for neurology in much the same way as Richard Dawkins is the public face of evolutionary biology. In his most famous book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, Sacks presents a variety of neurological case studies from the more extreme end of the spectrum. Thus we are introduced to Christina, who has no sense of her body at all; to Mr Thompson, who reinvents his world every few seconds; to poor Jimmie, stuck forever in 1945; and of course, to Dr P., who is indeed unable to distinguish between his spouse and his headgear.

In very few cases does Professor Sacks actually delve into the physiological reasons for his patients’ maladies (the section entitled “Transports”, concerning hallucinatory seizures, is a notable exception) instead confining himself to an explanation of their symptoms and a description of their treatment. The book is therefore steered away from becoming a technical treatise on brain dysfunction (which it could well have turned into) and focuses rather more on the human impact of such conditions. Sacks finds humanity in the most apparently hopeless of cases, and in doing so raises our awareness of what it means to be human.

He offers an interesting exposition of the visions of St Hildegard, whose religious raptures he convincingly ascribes to migraine scotomas, but still takes the view that religion is psychologically useful to many sufferers (an idea I think I’ll devote an entire post to very soon). Sacks also investigates the phenomenon of “human calculators”, ascribing the abilities of his patients to a synesthetic numerical ability, rather than actual mathematical skill.

Offering no real conclusions, but a range of ideas for further consideration, The Man Who Mistook… makes for a readable and rather uplifting introduction to neurology, even if it does raise more questions than it answers.