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ALPHABETICAL BRAIN™ VOCABULARY
HUMANIST GALAXY
OF SECULAR SCIENCE STARS
OLIVER SACKS
May 3, 2021
AWAKENINGS
by Oliver Sacks
Vintage Books, 1990 reprint edition,
1973 (408 pages)
BOOK OUTLINE
note = Numbers in parentheses refer to pages
Quote = The book "inspired the major motion picture, Awakenings... it is the remarkable story of a group of patients who contracted sleeping-sickness during the great epidemic just after World War I. Frozen for decades in a trance-like state, these men and women were given up as hopeless until 1969, when Dr. Oliver Sacks gave them the then-new drug L-DOPA, which had an astonishing, explosive, "awakening" effect. Sacks recounts the moving case histories of his patients, their lives, and the extraordinary transformations which went with their reintroduction to a changed world. (Paraphrased by webmaster from The Observer, the British newspaper review).
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH (unpaged at beginning of the book)
www.oliversacks.com
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (xiii-xv)
PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION (xvii-xix)
PREFACE TO THE 1990 EDITION (xxi-xxiii)
FOREWORD TO THE 1990 EDITION (xxv-xxxiv)
PROLOGUE (1-35)
PARKINSON'S DISEASE AND PARKINSONISM (3-11)
THE SLEEPING-SICKNESS — ENCEPHALITIS LETHARGICA (12-20)
THE AFTERMATH OF THE SLEEPING-SICKNESS: 1927-1967 (20-23)
LIFE AT MOUNT CARMEL (24-27)
THE COMING OF L-DOPA (28-35)
PART 1 --- AWAKENINGS (37-219)
FRANCES D. (39-67)
MAGDA B. (67-73)
ROSE R. (74-87)
ROBERT O. (88-94)
HESTER Y.P. (95-115)
ROLANDO P. (116-128)
MIRIAM H. (128-140)
LUCY K. (140-147)
MARGARET A. (148-160)
MIRON V. (161-164)
GERTIE C. (165-170)
MARTHA N. (170-176)
IDA T. (176-179)
FRANK G. (180-183)
MARIA G. (183-188)
RACHEL I. (188-189)
AARON E. (190-198)
GEORGE W. (198-201)
CECIL M. (202-203)
LEONARD L. (203-219)
PART 2 --- PERSPECTIVES (221-316)
PERSPECTIVES (223-234)
AWAKENING (235-243)
TRIBULATION (243-265)
ACCOMMODATION (265-275)
EPILOGUE --- 1982 (277-311)
POSTSCRIPT --- 1990 (313)
APPENDICES (317-386)
A HISTORY OF THE SLEEPING-SICKNESS (319-321)
'MIRACLE' DRUGS --- Freud, William James, and Havelock Ellis (323-324)
THE ELECTRICAL BASIS OF AWAKENINGS (327-332)
BEYOND L-DOPA (333-337)
PARKINSONIAN SPACE AND TIME (339-349)
CHAOS AND AWAKENINGS (351-365)
AWAKENINGS ON STAGE AND SCREEN (367-386)
GLOSSARY (387-394)
BIBLIOGRAPHY (395-401)
INDEX (402-408)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR, SUMMARY,
AND BOOK DESCRIPTION
ABOUT THE AUTHOR = Oliver Sacks was a neurologist, writer, and professor of medicine. Born in London in 1933, he was educated at the Queen's College, Oxford University, where he received his medical degree. He performed his internship at Middlesex Hospital in London and Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco. He completed his medical training at UCLA before moving to New York in 1965.
In 1965, he became a clinical neurologist to the Little Sisters of the Poor and Beth Abraham Hospital in Bronx New York, where he launched his medical career. His work at the Bronx charity hospital where he began writing case studies of his patients, which became his first memoir of the same name, Awakenings, in 1973. The book inspired many adaptations, including the Oscar-nominated film, Awakenings, which starred Robin Williams and Robert De Niro, and a play by Harold Pinter. His other books inspired several works by Peter Brook.
In 2007, he ended his 42-year relationship with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine to accept an interdisciplinary teaching position at Columbia. In 2012, he returned to the New York University School of Medicine as a professor of neurology. Sacks was the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Royal College of Physicians. Also he was made a Commander of the British Empire in 2008 for services to medicine. He died of cancer in 2015 at the age of 82.
SUMMARY = Oliver Sacks recounts the moving case histories of his patients, their lives, and the extraordinary transformations that they went through with their reintroduction to a changed world.
BOOK DESCRIPTION = The book that inspired the major motion picture is the remarkable story of a group of patients who contracted sleeping-sickness during the great epidemic just after World War I. Frozen for decades in a trance-like state, these men and women were given up as hopeless until 1969, when Dr. Oliver Sacks gave them the then-new drug L-DOPA, which had an astonishing, explosive, "awakening" effect.
Other books by Sack's also were about the strange neurological predicaments and conditions of his patients. Sacks was called the "poet laureate of medicine" by The New York Times. He spent almost fifty years working as a neurologist and is the author of thirteen books including: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Musicophilia, and Hallucinations. His memoir, On the Move, was is a book published shortly before his death in August 2015.
EDITORIAL BOOK REVIEWS
[1] One of the most beautifully composed and moving works of our time. -- The Washington Post.
[2] Awakenings --- which inspired the major motion picture --- is the remarkable story of a group of patients who contracted sleeping-sickness during the great epidemic just after World War I. Frozen for decades in a trance-like state, these men and women were given up as hopeless until 1969, when Dr. Oliver Sacks gave them the then-new drug L-DOPA, which had an astonishing, explosive, "awakening" effect. Sacks recounts the moving case histories of his patients, their lives, and the extraordinary transformations which went with their reintroduction to a changed world. -- The Observer.
[3] Sacks opens to the reader doors of perception generally passed through only by those at the far borders of human experience. -- The Boston Globe.
PROFESSIONAL REVIEWS
[1] Compulsively readable... Dr. Sacks writes beautifully and with exceptional subtlety and penetration into both the state of mind of his patients and the nature of illness generally... A brilliant and humane book. -- A. Alvarez.
[2] A masterpiece. -- H. H. Auden.
REMEMBER ALWAYS:
You Are Your Adaptable Memory!
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