Oliver Sacks Hat

Although the title suggests a comical book, Oliver Sacks presents an entirely different look on the mentally challenged/disturbed. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is a book that explains why a patient shows signs of losses, excesses, transports, and simplicity. Coincidentally, the book opens with its titling story, letting the reader explore the mind of an accomplish doctor who seems to have lost his true sight on life. In the following context, the seriousness of the stories and their interpretative breakdowns should only cause a better understanding of how the ever-so-questionable human mind truly works from a professional perspective put into simple words.

John Jeremiah Sullivan's essay "Feet in Smoke" tells a personal story about an accident that caused his brother to be electrocuted during the band's rehearsal, his brother Worth was singing when an electric shock hit him making his heart stopped. Sullivan recounts his brother's recovery at the hospital and tells specific events that occurred after he regained consciousness. Worth spent a coma more than three days. The author describes the family's concern while his brother was in the intensive care unit with only 1 percent of brain activity. After less than a week in a coma his brother woke up and Sullivan witnesses his brother's strange words, recovery, and reactions.

He also goes on in paragraph 39 to talk about drugs and medicine and how he often has to hoard the essential ones. He mentions however that drugs should not be taken lightly without some grounding in pharmacology, this further proved that he has been well educated in the past. In Paragraph 53, he talked on how he often finds books, diaries and papers discarded by college students. He remarks that he is horrified to discover the kinds of papers that merit and A, which means he must have had experience with the grading system. However he adds that he is grateful for the number of good books and magazines they toss out, this shows his appreciation for good literature and speaks to his educated background.

The Mad Hatter indeed does suffer from Mercury poisoning, Alice and Poor Tom are classic cases of of people who suffer from schizophrenia, and King Lear is proven to have some version of a narcissistic disorder. This is proven through analyzing the symptoms and actions of each of the characters. The Mad Hatter's constant mood swings, irrational thoughts, and the nervousness made Johnny Depp even feel that the charter was suffering from a disease. Alice is paranoid and has hallucinations of shrinking and growing to abnormal sizes, and the speaking animals and bugs are the reason that she is a paranoid schizophrenic. Poor Tom is a classic text book schizophrenic with his speech disorders and behavioral actions. Lastly, King Lear is diagnosed as having a destructive narcissistic personality through his need to feel accepted and quick to react violent actions are what make medical personnel believe him to be suffering from narcissism. It is important for people to discuss this issue of mentally ill characters for the importance of medical history. Through these great works of literature is a log of medical issues. This helps historians and doctors try to determine the beginning and origin in which the disease manifested and first

The guest speaker for class was Mack Farag the equipment manager for the football team. Mack was the manager of McMinnville high school for 12 years before he came to Linfield. His job consist of make sure the team has properly fitted equipment from helmets to leg pads. He is also in charge of all the balls, radio equipment and uniforms.

From the story, William depicts the difficulties that people have towards separating their emotions and standards. The doctor’s behavior towards the girl and the young patient’s reaction emphasizes the subject of this discussion. However, the use of ethos, the narrator portrays his character as a credible doctor in the story. The character of both the patient and the doctor reveal a plausible issue comparable in real life. During this period there is and epidemic of diphtheria, which worsens the situation forcing the doctor to take aggressive measures in treating his patient. Revealed through his words, the doctor first tries kindness; “Awe, come on, I coaxed, just open your mouth wide and let me take a look.” (Williams, 1984) However, the reaction from the girl is repulsive, forcing the doctor to be firm. The young girl’s character shows the conflict of her role as a patient and that of her personality. This is revealed by the fact the she is spoiled and

In addition, another important quality that the doctors have is the ability to collaborate. Dr. House deduces that the excessive bravery, along with the recurrent hallucinations may be an indication of a problem in the amygdala. With the help of Dr. House, the diagnostician, Dr. Foreman, the neurosurgeon, and Dr. Wilson, the

Doctor Adams goes to a place distant from civilization to deliver a baby. Darkness, wilderness, and dirtiness are images presented throughout the story that apply to the appearance of the India Camp. The description of the Indian Camp highlights racial inequality between the two cultures. After Dr. Adams delivers the baby, he feels exalted: A word that connotates a rise in status, dignity, power, honor, and wealth (Strong 23). This usage of the text is an example of how Dr. Adams sees himself superior than everyone in the room. In addition, he has an immediate desire to record thee operation into the medical journal. His medical journal symbolizes an ultimate authority: a removed, consecrated sign of medical, legal, and institutional power (Strong 23).

On page 154, at the bottom of the second paragraph, the narrator is wrapped in Leo’s legs as she kisses his hands showing affection making sure she kissed a clear spot of skin. Suddenly, he drops his legs and the moment is over. She replies with, “’I’ll go make dinner’” (Horrocks, “Steal Small”, pg. 154). I like this part of the story and find that it drives the plot because Horrocks uses a symbol like rotting skin and uses it as a way to show the reader how broken and rotten their relationship was. Throughout the story the gangrene seems to grow as the reader learns more about Leo and his wife, the narrator, who steal dogs and sell them for their own personal gain without any care to what happens to these poor creatures. The gangrene creates a funk over the world leaving the reader feel dirty and sad because they feel as helpless as the narrator who wishes she can save the dogs and her sister, but is held back by her own

Oliver Sacks is a very famous doctor of neurology as well as a writer. He spent most of his adult life treating patients. Oliver Sacks mostly concentrated on disorders of the brain and nervous system. In a lot of the cases that Sacks dealt with, there was nothing he was able to do to heal the patients. His goal was to find a way to live with and accept their condition as well as possible. Sacks enjoyed dealing with cases mostly about experiences of real people struggling to live with unusual conditions. That’s where he wanted to find ways to help these patients to the best of his and medical ability out there. Throughout his cases he studied he came across patients who had different

Oliver Sacks’s journey strives towards self-acceptance— he must overcome his leg injury and the struggles which this injury provides in order to succeed with his life. At the beginning of his memoir, Sacks is confident and sure of himself. He states “I foresaw no particular problems or difficulties” (Sacks, 1) and “I forged ahead…blessing my energy and stamina” (Sacks, 3). This confidence changes rapidly once he is injured, when he believes he is going to die, as it leads him to resort to desperate measures to get himself to safety. His attitude changes once he is at the hospital, where Sacks feels “a dread of something dark and nameless” (Sacks, 26). He is helpless under the care of his doctors— his leg has no feeling, yet the doctors persist in telling him that it is fine, “surgically speaking” (Sacks, 80). The doctors’ refusal to acknowledge Sacks’s lack of feeling begins to wear Sacks down, and he starts to believe that his leg will never work again, putting him in a place of despair. However, with the start towards Sacks’s changed mindset, he learns to walk

Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Silas Weir Mitchell were part of two worlds, one having to live and be treated for a nervous condition and the other having to study the conditions of nerves. Yet, in this particular moment in the late-19th century United States, one can detect a dialogue between doctor and patient in each of their short stories. That is exactly what is detected between Charlotte Perkins Gilman and S. Weir Mitchell. While both The Case of Dedlow and the Yellow Wallpaper use fiction to express themselves more thoroughly about mental health and science, The Case of Dedlow is more concerned with the aspect of scientific case study while the Yellow Wallpaper focuses on indicting science. This paper will compare and contrast the narratives of the aforementioned short stories and discuss the significance of their reception and how their audience understood them.

The author is a young man who obliviously is not self-effacing about his own usage and enjoyment of drugs. He used LSD, which in the fall of 2001 he realized that he had not seen the drug in ages and it was nowhere to be found; not for others or even for himself and statistics showed the decrease of the acid and its usage also. Dissatisfied with the situation He went to see his friend, Professor Peter Reuter who is a

Chapter four discussed the topic of Anosognosia, which is a deficit of self-awareness and ability to recognize one own disease. The denial of ones own disease is due to damage in a certain cognitive function in the brain. This neurological condition shares in Gage’s atmosphere even when the patients do not necessarily look like Gage from the outside. People with anosognosia have it be confronted very straight forward with there defect, for example making them move a certain limb that they say is fine but in reality it is paralyzed and can not be moved on its own, this shows them that things are not all alright. In sever cases of anosognosia the ability to sense a defect never returns but in minor cases it can be concealed, by visual recollection

Using the "What" theory, he evaluates our third case study David, who seem to have damaged his "What" pathway. David explained that he was in an accident driving back home to California from Mexico, "There was a problem with the car and I landed on the highway with my head first." After the accident he lay in the hospital under coma for five weeks. David would seem normal, reading, conversations, talking, but except for one little detail, he would see his mother and say "This woman, Doctor, she looks exactly like my mother but in fact she's not my mother. She's an imposter. She's some other woman pretending to be my mother." After that David considers his parents as imposters and not his real parent. This is a symptom called the Capgras Delusion. Dr Ramanchandran evaluates the theory of the Capgras Delusion that when you look at an image or object the visual center of the temporal lobes picks up that image. But when the image is sent as a message to the temporal lobe cortex to say David's reaction to his mothers' image, to say well she is my mother. Dr Ramanchandran explains that David recognizes his mother, but the message sent with the image did not reach its destination, the Amygdala, but because the fibers were cut during the period he had the accident "therefore, There is no emotion. There is no warmth." David's mother gave him a