Saturday, November 6, 2010

A Neurologists Deals With His Own Brain

Oliver Sacks is probably the most well known neurologist. He's written amazing books such as The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales and Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood.

His research and writing is fascinating but not as fascinating as he is himself. Even more so now that he's telling the world about some of the problems or issues he has with his own brain. For one thing he suffers from face blindness and for another he recently had a rare eye tumor. He has now lost all vision in his right eye.

So now a celebrated neurologists who writes about the oddness that occurs in the brain of others has written about the oddities of his own mind. To get a sense of the man and his journey through cancer of the eye I suggest listening to a long interview with Terry Gross of NPR.

Not many other people are as qualified to analyse and tell us about their own journey through loss of site as Oliver Sacks is. He gives an insight into not only what was happening to his vision but also why it was happening. It's well worth a listen.

No comments: