A neurologist's notebook

I became acquainted with the writings of Oliver Sacks about five years ago studying cognitive science as part of my degree program. I am presently reading his latest, Musicophilia, and I thought it appropriate to note something about his work.

To anyone unfamiliar, Sacks is a preeminent neurologist and author of many works detailing particularly odd and interesting neurological (or when neurology fails to explain, simply phenomenological conditions) he has found in his patients. He came to notoriety with Awakenings, an autobiographical work chronicling his success in the late 60s at treating the catatonic victims of the 1920s encephalitis lethargica "sleeping sickness" epidemic. The book was adapted for both the stage as well as an Academy Award-nominated film (starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams) in 1990. He has published several other highly acclaimed works including: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, An Anthropologist on Mars, and The Island of the Color Blind, among others. In addition to his books, he is a frequent contributor to the New Yorker. Some of his articles can be found online:

The Mind's Eye: What The Blind See

The Abyss