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Awakenings
Awakenings is a 1973 non-fiction book by Oliver Sacks. It recounts the life histories of those who had been victims of the 1920s encephalitis lethargica epidemic. Sacks chronicles his efforts in the late 1960s to help these patients at the Beth Abraham Hospital in the Bronx, New York.
464 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
About the author
Oliver Sacks
103 books8,829 followersOliver Wolf Sacks, CBE, was a British neurologist residing in the United States, who has written popular books about his patients, the most famous of which is Awakenings, which was adapted into a film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro.
Sacks was the youngest of four children born to a prosperous North London Jewish couple: Sam, a physician, and Elsie, a surgeon. When he was six years old, he and his brother were evacuated from London to escape The Blitz, retreating to a boarding school in the Midlands, where he remained until 1943. During his youth, he was a keen amateur chemist, as recalled in his memoir Uncle Tungsten. He also learned to share his parents' enthusiasm for medicine and entered The Queen's College, Oxford University in 1951, from which he received a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in physiology and biology in 1954. At the same institution, he went on to earn in 1958, a Master of Arts (MA) and an MB ChB in chemistry, thereby qualifying to practice medicine.
After converting his British qualifications to American recognition (i.e., an MD as opposed to MB ChB), Sacks moved to New York, where he has lived since 1965, and taken twice weekly therapy sessions since 1966.
Sacks began consulting at chronic care facility Beth Abraham Hospital (now Beth Abraham Health Service) in 1966. At Beth Abraham, Sacks worked with a group of survivors of the 1920s sleeping sickness, encephalitis lethargica, who had been unable to move on their own for decades. These patients and his treatment of them were the basis of Sacks' book Awakenings.
His work at Beth Abraham helped provide the foundation on which the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function (IMNF), where Sacks is currently an honorary medical advisor, is built. In 2000, IMNF honored Sacks, its founder, with its first Music Has Power Award. The IMNF again bestowed a Music Has Power Award on Sacks in 2006 to commemorate "his 40 years at Beth Abraham and honor his outstanding contributions in support of music therapy and the effect of music on the human brain and mind".
Sacks was formerly employed as a clinical professor of neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and at the New York University School of Medicine, serving the latter school for 42 years. On 1 July 2007, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons appointed Sacks to a position as professor of clinical neurology and clinical psychiatry, at the same time opening to him a new position as "artist", which the university hoped will help interconnect disciplines such as medicine, law, and economics. Sacks was a consultant neurologist to the Little Sisters of the Poor, and maintained a practice in New York City.
Since 1996, Sacks was a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters (Literature). In 1999, Sacks became a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences. Also in 1999, he became an Honorary Fellow at The Queen's College, Oxford. In 2002, he became Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Class IV—Humanities and Arts, Section 4—Literature).[38] and he was awarded the 2001 Lewis Thomas Prize by Rockefeller University. Sacks was awarded honorary doctorates from the College of Staten Island (1991), Tufts University (1991), New York Medical College (1991), Georgetown University (1992), Medical College of Pennsylvania (1992), Bard College (1992), Queen's University (Ontario) (2001), Gallaudet University (2005), University of Oxford (2005), Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (2006). He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours. Asteroid 84928 Oliversacks, discovered in 2003 and 2 miles (3.2 km) in diameter, has been named in his honor.
Sacks was the youngest of four children born to a prosperous North London Jewish couple: Sam, a physician, and Elsie, a surgeon. When he was six years old, he and his brother were evacuated from London to escape The Blitz, retreating to a boarding school in the Midlands, where he remained until 1943. During his youth, he was a keen amateur chemist, as recalled in his memoir Uncle Tungsten. He also learned to share his parents' enthusiasm for medicine and entered The Queen's College, Oxford University in 1951, from which he received a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in physiology and biology in 1954. At the same institution, he went on to earn in 1958, a Master of Arts (MA) and an MB ChB in chemistry, thereby qualifying to practice medicine.
After converting his British qualifications to American recognition (i.e., an MD as opposed to MB ChB), Sacks moved to New York, where he has lived since 1965, and taken twice weekly therapy sessions since 1966.
Sacks began consulting at chronic care facility Beth Abraham Hospital (now Beth Abraham Health Service) in 1966. At Beth Abraham, Sacks worked with a group of survivors of the 1920s sleeping sickness, encephalitis lethargica, who had been unable to move on their own for decades. These patients and his treatment of them were the basis of Sacks' book Awakenings.
His work at Beth Abraham helped provide the foundation on which the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function (IMNF), where Sacks is currently an honorary medical advisor, is built. In 2000, IMNF honored Sacks, its founder, with its first Music Has Power Award. The IMNF again bestowed a Music Has Power Award on Sacks in 2006 to commemorate "his 40 years at Beth Abraham and honor his outstanding contributions in support of music therapy and the effect of music on the human brain and mind".
Sacks was formerly employed as a clinical professor of neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and at the New York University School of Medicine, serving the latter school for 42 years. On 1 July 2007, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons appointed Sacks to a position as professor of clinical neurology and clinical psychiatry, at the same time opening to him a new position as "artist", which the university hoped will help interconnect disciplines such as medicine, law, and economics. Sacks was a consultant neurologist to the Little Sisters of the Poor, and maintained a practice in New York City.
Since 1996, Sacks was a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters (Literature). In 1999, Sacks became a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences. Also in 1999, he became an Honorary Fellow at The Queen's College, Oxford. In 2002, he became Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Class IV—Humanities and Arts, Section 4—Literature).[38] and he was awarded the 2001 Lewis Thomas Prize by Rockefeller University. Sacks was awarded honorary doctorates from the College of Staten Island (1991), Tufts University (1991), New York Medical College (1991), Georgetown University (1992), Medical College of Pennsylvania (1992), Bard College (1992), Queen's University (Ontario) (2001), Gallaudet University (2005), University of Oxford (2005), Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (2006). He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours. Asteroid 84928 Oliversacks, discovered in 2003 and 2 miles (3.2 km) in diameter, has been named in his honor.
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December 3, 2020
A KIND OF ALASKA
Nell’omonimo film di Penny Marshall il medico è interpretato da Robin Williams e il paziente da Robert DeNiro.
Che bella sorpresa, e scoperta, e novità che fu questo libro!
E il suo autore, Oliver Sacks, e tutta la sua opera.
Veniva voglia di leggerli tutti. Ammirevole, e intelligente, il lavoro di Adelphi nel tradurli e pubblicarli.
Questo suo primo era già quasi adulto quando uscì da noi: quattrodici anni dopo, dal 1973, anno della prima uscita, al 1987, quando apparve qui.
Chi aveva voglia di leggere di malati e malattia e casi clinici? Manco poi fosse una malattia comune: encefalite letargica! E chi mai ne aveva sentito parlare…
Invece, leggevamo: di gente con patologia sconosciuta, di gente sconosciuta.
Non tutto era facile e semplice da leggere, l’argomento scientifico non era mica alla portata d’ogni lettore: ma Sacks iniettava in ognuno di quelli che aprivano il suo libro tali dosi di empatia, una tale carica d’umanità, che finivamo tutti contagiati.
Sanamente e positivamente contagiati.
Questa è l’immagine scelta per uno dei manifesti. Il film è del 1990, fu candidato a tre Oscar, ma non ne vinse nessuno (giustamente).
Nel 1916-17 negli Stati Uniti d’America un virus fece strage di gente: cinque milioni di infettati. E, sembra, altrettanti furono i morti.
Non solo, l’epidemia pandemica durò un decennio, non i mesi che si dice durerà questa in corso (che prende il nome dal virus a forma di corona).
I malati dormivano, erano storditi, letargici, e man mano andavano sempre più contraendo le caratteristiche di affetti da morbo di Parkinson:
passano le giornate seduti, immobili e silenziosi, totalmente privi di energia, di slancio, iniziativa, motivazioni, appetiti, affetti o desideri.
Vengono in mente gli zombi.
Oliver Sacks comincia a raccontare dal 1967, quando neurologo ancora ai primi passi lavorava in un ospedale nei dintorni di New York dove era raccolta una delle ultime comunità di sopravvissuti all’epidemia di mezzo secolo prima. Ottanta persone.
Questo saggio di argomento medico-scientifico, oltre all’approccio “caldo” di Sacks, alla sua scrittura scorrevole (che però ha sollevato critiche nella comunità scientifica, Sacks fu accusato di superficialità), alla passione e curiosità che Sacks trasmette, man mano si trasforma anche in una sua sorta di biografia: Oliver racconta molto di sé attraverso i casi che segue e i malati che cura.
E poi il film, liberamente ispirato al libro, che bello o brutto, fu un successo.
E poi la pièce teatrale firmata dal grande Harold Pinter, che ha ispirato il mio titolo, A Kind of Alaska.
Un viaggio nella sofferenza condotti da un Virgilio con qualcosa di sovraumano.
Nell’omonimo film di Penny Marshall il medico è interpretato da Robin Williams e il paziente da Robert DeNiro.
Che bella sorpresa, e scoperta, e novità che fu questo libro!
E il suo autore, Oliver Sacks, e tutta la sua opera.
Veniva voglia di leggerli tutti. Ammirevole, e intelligente, il lavoro di Adelphi nel tradurli e pubblicarli.
Questo suo primo era già quasi adulto quando uscì da noi: quattrodici anni dopo, dal 1973, anno della prima uscita, al 1987, quando apparve qui.
Chi aveva voglia di leggere di malati e malattia e casi clinici? Manco poi fosse una malattia comune: encefalite letargica! E chi mai ne aveva sentito parlare…
Invece, leggevamo: di gente con patologia sconosciuta, di gente sconosciuta.
Non tutto era facile e semplice da leggere, l’argomento scientifico non era mica alla portata d’ogni lettore: ma Sacks iniettava in ognuno di quelli che aprivano il suo libro tali dosi di empatia, una tale carica d’umanità, che finivamo tutti contagiati.
Sanamente e positivamente contagiati.
Questa è l’immagine scelta per uno dei manifesti. Il film è del 1990, fu candidato a tre Oscar, ma non ne vinse nessuno (giustamente).
Nel 1916-17 negli Stati Uniti d’America un virus fece strage di gente: cinque milioni di infettati. E, sembra, altrettanti furono i morti.
Non solo, l’epidemia pandemica durò un decennio, non i mesi che si dice durerà questa in corso (che prende il nome dal virus a forma di corona).
I malati dormivano, erano storditi, letargici, e man mano andavano sempre più contraendo le caratteristiche di affetti da morbo di Parkinson:
passano le giornate seduti, immobili e silenziosi, totalmente privi di energia, di slancio, iniziativa, motivazioni, appetiti, affetti o desideri.
Vengono in mente gli zombi.
Oliver Sacks comincia a raccontare dal 1967, quando neurologo ancora ai primi passi lavorava in un ospedale nei dintorni di New York dove era raccolta una delle ultime comunità di sopravvissuti all’epidemia di mezzo secolo prima. Ottanta persone.
Questo saggio di argomento medico-scientifico, oltre all’approccio “caldo” di Sacks, alla sua scrittura scorrevole (che però ha sollevato critiche nella comunità scientifica, Sacks fu accusato di superficialità), alla passione e curiosità che Sacks trasmette, man mano si trasforma anche in una sua sorta di biografia: Oliver racconta molto di sé attraverso i casi che segue e i malati che cura.
E poi il film, liberamente ispirato al libro, che bello o brutto, fu un successo.
E poi la pièce teatrale firmata dal grande Harold Pinter, che ha ispirato il mio titolo, A Kind of Alaska.
Un viaggio nella sofferenza condotti da un Virgilio con qualcosa di sovraumano.
July 9, 2016
The crux of the book is the work Sacks began in the mid-1960s with dozens of post-encephalitic patients at Bronx's Beth Abraham hospital, then called the Bronx Home for Incurables and disguised here as Mount Carmel. These patients were infected in 1918 by the encephalitis lethargica virus, or sleepy sickness. (Not to be confused with the worldwide influenza pandemic of that same year.) Those who survived were able afterwards to lead normal lives for years and sometimes decades until they were stricken with Parkinson's disease-like symptoms: locked and rigid postures that turned them into living statuary (akinesia), hurrying gait (festination), frozen skewed gaze (oculogyyric crises), and so on. These patients did not have Parkinson's disease proper, but because the encephalitis reduced the neurotransmitter dopamine in the part of their brain known as the substantia nigra they experienced identical, if somewhat more severe symptoms than actual Parkinson's patients. They were to become know as post-encephalitics.
In 1969 L-DOPA's cost came down sufficiently that Dr. Sacks began to prescribe it for his post-encephalitic patients. The results were at once miraculous and disastrous. In a matter of weeks, sometimes overnight, Sacks's patients were "awakened" from what for many had been decades of immobility, incommunicability, and dependence on high levels of nursing care. Suddenly these frozen figures were walking and talking, their personalities, in hiatus for so long, perfectly preserved. Dr. Sacks reviews the cases here of 20 such patients, from their often sudden awakening to the onset and growing severity of side effects. Awakenings is in the final analysis a tragedy. Few of Sacks patients could tolerate the long term effects of L-DOPA. Not a few regretted ever being treated with it. For a handful it provided a vastly improved quality of life. They became social again, needed far less nursing care, but the effects of the drug were highly unstable.
In an appendix added to the 1990 edition, Sacks and a colleague analyze patient responses to L-DOPA using the then emerging discipline of chaos theory. This appears only in the 1990 edition since the discipline did not exist when Sacks and his patients began their trials of the levodopa in '69. Dr. Sacks never met a footnote he didn't love. The book is chockful of them. Those too long to fit alongside the text are included as appendices. Ninety-five percent of them seem to me indispensable. Sacks is a great thinker of immense erudition who possesses a highly readable prose style. The primary text provides straightforward exposition, but when read in conjunction with the footnotes--where much of the real meat of the book resides--it can at times take on an almost fiction-like discursiveness.
Of Sacks's dozen or so books, I've read all but three. Awakenings is his magnum opus, his manifesto and policy declaration. In it he lays out his positions on the then current neurology of the day (Awakenings was first published in 1973) which he lambastes as coldly empirical and lacking a complementary metaphysical component. In America, and no doubt much of the West, these were the last years of the Physician as God. There was little public knowledge of medicine then, unlike today, and the doctor's role in a crisis was usually unquestioned. Today second opinions are sought with regularity, "integrative" approaches to healing more readily embraced, and there is a vast industry based on purveying medical knowledge to the general public. You can see this great change perhaps best in the way pharmaceutical companies now advertise directly to the public in a way they never did during the Awakenings period. Sacks is here an articulate proponent for a more human, less coldly analytical medicine, and his endorsement for such an approach, which includes close interpersonal relationships with patients, is a clarion call. Fascinating, meticulous, and highly recommended.
One appendix is devoted to the many dramatizations of Awakenings on stage and screen. There's Harold Pinter's one-act play A Kind of Alaska, an original documentary film, and the feature film, which retained Sacks as a consultant. I found his descriptions here of DeNiro preparing for his role as Leonard L. fascinating.
In 1969 L-DOPA's cost came down sufficiently that Dr. Sacks began to prescribe it for his post-encephalitic patients. The results were at once miraculous and disastrous. In a matter of weeks, sometimes overnight, Sacks's patients were "awakened" from what for many had been decades of immobility, incommunicability, and dependence on high levels of nursing care. Suddenly these frozen figures were walking and talking, their personalities, in hiatus for so long, perfectly preserved. Dr. Sacks reviews the cases here of 20 such patients, from their often sudden awakening to the onset and growing severity of side effects. Awakenings is in the final analysis a tragedy. Few of Sacks patients could tolerate the long term effects of L-DOPA. Not a few regretted ever being treated with it. For a handful it provided a vastly improved quality of life. They became social again, needed far less nursing care, but the effects of the drug were highly unstable.
In an appendix added to the 1990 edition, Sacks and a colleague analyze patient responses to L-DOPA using the then emerging discipline of chaos theory. This appears only in the 1990 edition since the discipline did not exist when Sacks and his patients began their trials of the levodopa in '69. Dr. Sacks never met a footnote he didn't love. The book is chockful of them. Those too long to fit alongside the text are included as appendices. Ninety-five percent of them seem to me indispensable. Sacks is a great thinker of immense erudition who possesses a highly readable prose style. The primary text provides straightforward exposition, but when read in conjunction with the footnotes--where much of the real meat of the book resides--it can at times take on an almost fiction-like discursiveness.
Of Sacks's dozen or so books, I've read all but three. Awakenings is his magnum opus, his manifesto and policy declaration. In it he lays out his positions on the then current neurology of the day (Awakenings was first published in 1973) which he lambastes as coldly empirical and lacking a complementary metaphysical component. In America, and no doubt much of the West, these were the last years of the Physician as God. There was little public knowledge of medicine then, unlike today, and the doctor's role in a crisis was usually unquestioned. Today second opinions are sought with regularity, "integrative" approaches to healing more readily embraced, and there is a vast industry based on purveying medical knowledge to the general public. You can see this great change perhaps best in the way pharmaceutical companies now advertise directly to the public in a way they never did during the Awakenings period. Sacks is here an articulate proponent for a more human, less coldly analytical medicine, and his endorsement for such an approach, which includes close interpersonal relationships with patients, is a clarion call. Fascinating, meticulous, and highly recommended.
One appendix is devoted to the many dramatizations of Awakenings on stage and screen. There's Harold Pinter's one-act play A Kind of Alaska, an original documentary film, and the feature film, which retained Sacks as a consultant. I found his descriptions here of DeNiro preparing for his role as Leonard L. fascinating.
February 18, 2012
Reading this makes me wish all doctors approached medical practice the way Dr. Sacks does. His clinical grasp of neurology is impressive, but his humanity, compassion, and philosophical approach lend him a more effective manner than other clinicians. His ability to present the conditions of his patients and their treatment as more than either/or, as more than a list of data points, is what makes this book a classic. A basic familiarity with neurology makes this an easier read; he uses a lot of medical terms to describe symptoms and treatments. However, he goes beyond symptoms to see how the patients in his care interact with their disease, treatment, and environment as unique individuals. Science in general and medicine in particular have been on a decades-long reductionist trend - as though all conditions can be boiled down to the one gene, the one protein, the one chemical that will take care of it all. In reality, life is too complex for that to work most of the time. Dr. Sack's ability to approach patients as whole, unique beings full of life is the key to his popularity as a physician and writer.
December 27, 2017
Della "scienza romantica"
Più che quattro, sarebbero tre stelle e mezza. Come sempre, in caso di non-fiction, è doveroso precisare: il giudizio si riferisce alla godibilità, alla fruibilità dell'opera letteraria, e non certo alla persona dell'autore, o ancor meno all'esperienza e ai concetti che lui intende trasmettere, perché allora le stelle da assegnare sarebbero ben più di cinque.
Questo è il libro da cui è stato tratto il celebre film con Robin Williams e Robert De Niro. Come sempre, nel libro c'è molto più che nel film, è un'opera complessa che esula da qualsiasi genere. Lo stesso autore sottolinea più volte, nelle prefazioni, come il suo lavoro si trovi "al punto di incrocio fra Biologia e Biografia".
"Attraverso di loro (i pazienti) io indagavo ciò che significa essere umani, e rimanere umani, di fronte ad avversità e minacce inimmaginabili. Quindi, pur continuando a controllare la loro natura organica - le loro fisiopatologie e biologie complesse e sempre mutevoli - , l'oggetto e il motivo centrale dei miei studi divennero le loro identità e la loro lotta per mantenere un'identità: osservare questa lotta, aiutarla e infine descriverla."
In verità, quella che doveva essere forse la premessa fondamentale, viene data un po' per scontata: il fatto di iniziare a curare le sindromi postencefalitiche con il farmaco denominato L-dopa ha evidentemente tutta una storia alle spalle, una storia che qui viene però sbrigata in poche pagine per passare direttamente all'analisi degli effetti concreti del farmaco sui singoli pazienti. Del resto, è lo stesso Sacks a confidare nelle premesse che il libro sarebbe stato scritto ugualmente anche se non ci fosse stato nessun risveglio in nessun paziente: dice che lo avrebbe intitolato "Il popolo dell'abisso" o "Cinquante ans de sommeil" per fare il resoconto dell'immobilità e del buio di tutte quelle vite fermate e congelate. Più volte egli si meraviglia di come essi abbiano potuto sopravvivere a un tale martirio, attingendo a riserve di forza dalla profondità sconosciuta e insondabile, e riflettendo in generale sul fatto che la salute ha radici più profonde della malattia.
Lettura non scorrevole e non facile, sia per la quantità di note e riferimenti che bisogna sempre andare a ritrovare nell'appendice, sia perché le descrizioni dei casi clinici sono veramente dettagliate, e la quantità di termini tecnici arriva a tratti a formare delle vere e proprie raffiche. Ma la pacatezza del tono e la bontà della scrittura e la profonda umanità di questo medico che come prima cosa si propone di ascoltare il suo paziente e considerarlo come un essere umano anziché come un oggetto, tutto questo non viene mai meno, neanche per un secondo. Egli pone sempre l'accento sulla dignità del paziente, la sua allegria o malinconia, le sue aspettative, ascolta i loro racconti e riporta i loro diari, pone attenzione anche all'atmosfera spesso cupa e chiusa del cronicario e agli sforzi (suoi e di buona parte del personale) per cercare di renderla più familiare e solidale. Ed è così che, passando un po' sopra i tecnicismi più complessi, ci si addentra con semplicità in queste storie fatte di sofferenza e solitudine: una serie di storie, di venti pazienti, esposte una ad una e che costituiscono il cuore di quest'opera. E la parte specialissima di questo cuore, è senza dubbio la storia del paziente Leonard, che non a caso è divenuto il protagonista del film: "Questa combinazione di un gravissimo stato di malattia e di un'acutissima intelligenza analitica faceva del signor L. un paziente per così dire "ideale": nei sei anni e mezzo dacché lo conosco mi ha insegnato più cose lui sul parkinsonismo, sulla malattia postencefalitica, sulla sofferenza e sulla natura umana che non tutto il resto dei miei pazienti messi insieme."
Ma nelle corpose prefazioni e postfazioni non mancano le riflessioni sul morbo di Parkinson più in generale, la psicologia, la neurologia e la neurochimica, e ancora più in grande sulla medicina tutta e sulla farmacologia, e poi ancor più in grande, con ricchezza di citazioni e riferimenti che denotano la persona colta, fino a suggerire analisi di tipo relativistico e quantico, filosofico e metafisico: "...e questo è così vero che mi meraviglia che la relatività e la teoria dei quanti non siano state scoperte dai biologi molto prima che dai fisici."
"Tutti questi stati di anacronismo, così come altre stranezze temporali descritte in questo libro, indicano quanto sia profondo l'abisso fra l'astratto e il reale, il cronologico e l'ontologico, nel nostro modo di concepire e percepire il tempo."
"In quell'attimo mi fu subito chiaro che il parkinsonismo non può essere considerato come qualcosa che aumenta o diminuisce per quantità finite. Di colpo compresi che il parkinsonismo era una propensione, una tendenza, che non aveva un minimo o un massimo, né unità finite; che esso era anumerico; che dal primo, infinitesimale accenno esso poteva procedere, attraverso una infinita moltitudine di incrementi infinitesimali, fino a raggiungere una gravità infinita, e poi più infinita, e poi ancora più infinita. […] Così, il più piccolo accenno di parkinsonismo (o di emicrania, o di angoscia, o di estasi) prefigura il tutto, ha già, in miniatura, la qualità del tutto, è il punto di partenza di un'espansione potenzialmente infinta."
"Si può soltanto dire che in larga maggioranza i sopravvissuti scesero irrevocabilmente, cerchio dopo cerchio, nel baratro di una malattia sempre più profonda, senza speranza, vittime di una solitudine inimmaginabile, e di tutto, proprio la solitudine era forse la cosa più insopportabile. "Come la malattia è la peggiore afflizione, così la peggiore afflizione della malattia è la solitudine... La solitudine è un tormento non comminato neppure nell'inferno" (J. Donne)."
Oltre alla meraviglia nello scoprire le storie dei suoi pazienti, e all'interesse nel leggere le riflessioni di Sacks stesso – un uomo che ammette, per sua storia, di essere mezzo medico e mezzo artista e di avere unito le due cose nella sua esperienza personale – resta il rammarico nel rendersi conto che, per la maggioranza dei medici, l'esercizio della medicina resta niente altro che quella faccenda meramente meccanicistica così ben spiegata e deplorata dall'autore di queste pagine. Il gran pregio di questo libro è proprio di insegnare ad analizzare i problemi guardandone le due facce: da un lato quella meccanica, che si può sterilizzare e isolare dal resto del mondo; e dall'altro lato quella che non si può misurare in numeri o indici ma solo in sensazioni e sentimenti. Nell'analisi di entrambe, Sacks sa sempre mantenersi estremamente concreto e rigorosamente scientifico.
"Tutto il mio libro si occupa di queste domande ("come stai?", "come va?")[…] Il dialogo su come uno sta può essere espresso solo in termini umani, in termini familiari, che vengono facilmente e naturalmente a tutti noi; e può svolgersi solo se vi è un confronto umano diretto, una relazione "io-tu", fra il mondo di discorso dei medici e quello dei malati."
"Salute, malattie e reazioni non possono essere capite in vitro da sole; possono essere capite solo se riferite a noi, quali espressioni della nostra natura, del nostro vivere, del nostro esser-ci. E tuttavia la medicina moderna, in misura sempre maggiore, prescinde dalla nostra esistenza, o col ridurci a repliche identiche che reagiscono a "stimoli" prefissati in modi altrettanto prefissati, o col considerare le nostre malattie semplicemente come fenomeni estranei e cattivi, senza relazione organica con la persona malata. Il corrispondente terapeutico di idee del genere, naturalmente, è l'idea che si debba aggredire la malattia con tutte le armi di cui si dispone, e che si possa sferrare l'attacco del tutto impunemente, senza un solo pensiero per la persona che è malata. Tali concezioni, che dominano sempre più l'intero panorama medico, sono tanto mistiche e manichee quanto sono meccaniche e inumane, e sono tanto più perniciose in quanto non sono realmente capite ed esplicitamente dichiarate e confessate."
"...bisogna smettere di considerare tutti i pazienti come copie conformi, e onorare ciascuno di loro con un'attenzione individuale, attenzione a come sta lui, singolarmente, alle sue personali reazioni e propensioni; in questo modo, avendo il paziente come proprio uguale, compagno di esplorazione e non marionetta, si possono trovare vie terapeutiche che sono migliori di altre, tattiche che si possono modificare secondo le esigenze della situazione. Dato uno "spazio di azione politica" non più semplice o convergente, l'intuito è l'unica guida sicura: e in questo il paziente può benissimo superare il suo medico."
"Senza loro desiderio né colpa, questi pazienti si trovano a esplorare gli abissi e le possibilità estreme dell'essere e della sofferenza umani. Le loro non cercate crocifissioni non sono senza frutto, se consentono di aiutare o illuminare altri, se ci portano a una maggior comprensione della natura dell'afflizione, dell'attenzione amorevole e della cura strettamente medica. […] Ciò che vediamo è, in definitiva, l'assoluta insufficienza della medicina meccanicistica, la totale inadeguatezza di una visione meccanicistica del mondo. Questi malati sono smentite viventi al pensiero meccanicistico, così come sono esempi viventi di un pensiero biologico. […] Ci ricordano che siamo sovrasviluppati in fatto di competenza meccanica, ma manchiamo di intelligenza, intuizione, consapevolezza biologiche; ed è questo, soprattutto, che dobbiamo riguadagnare, non solamente la medicina, ma nella scienza in generale."
"...e la particolare gioia che ho provato lavorando con i miei postencefalitici negli ultimi quindici anni è stata la fusione degli approfondimenti scientifici con quelli "romantici", la scoperta che la mia mente e il mio cuore erano parimenti esercitati e coinvolti, il sapere che qualsiasi altra cosa sarebbe stata un abbandono di entrambi."
Più che quattro, sarebbero tre stelle e mezza. Come sempre, in caso di non-fiction, è doveroso precisare: il giudizio si riferisce alla godibilità, alla fruibilità dell'opera letteraria, e non certo alla persona dell'autore, o ancor meno all'esperienza e ai concetti che lui intende trasmettere, perché allora le stelle da assegnare sarebbero ben più di cinque.
Questo è il libro da cui è stato tratto il celebre film con Robin Williams e Robert De Niro. Come sempre, nel libro c'è molto più che nel film, è un'opera complessa che esula da qualsiasi genere. Lo stesso autore sottolinea più volte, nelle prefazioni, come il suo lavoro si trovi "al punto di incrocio fra Biologia e Biografia".
"Attraverso di loro (i pazienti) io indagavo ciò che significa essere umani, e rimanere umani, di fronte ad avversità e minacce inimmaginabili. Quindi, pur continuando a controllare la loro natura organica - le loro fisiopatologie e biologie complesse e sempre mutevoli - , l'oggetto e il motivo centrale dei miei studi divennero le loro identità e la loro lotta per mantenere un'identità: osservare questa lotta, aiutarla e infine descriverla."
In verità, quella che doveva essere forse la premessa fondamentale, viene data un po' per scontata: il fatto di iniziare a curare le sindromi postencefalitiche con il farmaco denominato L-dopa ha evidentemente tutta una storia alle spalle, una storia che qui viene però sbrigata in poche pagine per passare direttamente all'analisi degli effetti concreti del farmaco sui singoli pazienti. Del resto, è lo stesso Sacks a confidare nelle premesse che il libro sarebbe stato scritto ugualmente anche se non ci fosse stato nessun risveglio in nessun paziente: dice che lo avrebbe intitolato "Il popolo dell'abisso" o "Cinquante ans de sommeil" per fare il resoconto dell'immobilità e del buio di tutte quelle vite fermate e congelate. Più volte egli si meraviglia di come essi abbiano potuto sopravvivere a un tale martirio, attingendo a riserve di forza dalla profondità sconosciuta e insondabile, e riflettendo in generale sul fatto che la salute ha radici più profonde della malattia.
Lettura non scorrevole e non facile, sia per la quantità di note e riferimenti che bisogna sempre andare a ritrovare nell'appendice, sia perché le descrizioni dei casi clinici sono veramente dettagliate, e la quantità di termini tecnici arriva a tratti a formare delle vere e proprie raffiche. Ma la pacatezza del tono e la bontà della scrittura e la profonda umanità di questo medico che come prima cosa si propone di ascoltare il suo paziente e considerarlo come un essere umano anziché come un oggetto, tutto questo non viene mai meno, neanche per un secondo. Egli pone sempre l'accento sulla dignità del paziente, la sua allegria o malinconia, le sue aspettative, ascolta i loro racconti e riporta i loro diari, pone attenzione anche all'atmosfera spesso cupa e chiusa del cronicario e agli sforzi (suoi e di buona parte del personale) per cercare di renderla più familiare e solidale. Ed è così che, passando un po' sopra i tecnicismi più complessi, ci si addentra con semplicità in queste storie fatte di sofferenza e solitudine: una serie di storie, di venti pazienti, esposte una ad una e che costituiscono il cuore di quest'opera. E la parte specialissima di questo cuore, è senza dubbio la storia del paziente Leonard, che non a caso è divenuto il protagonista del film: "Questa combinazione di un gravissimo stato di malattia e di un'acutissima intelligenza analitica faceva del signor L. un paziente per così dire "ideale": nei sei anni e mezzo dacché lo conosco mi ha insegnato più cose lui sul parkinsonismo, sulla malattia postencefalitica, sulla sofferenza e sulla natura umana che non tutto il resto dei miei pazienti messi insieme."
Ma nelle corpose prefazioni e postfazioni non mancano le riflessioni sul morbo di Parkinson più in generale, la psicologia, la neurologia e la neurochimica, e ancora più in grande sulla medicina tutta e sulla farmacologia, e poi ancor più in grande, con ricchezza di citazioni e riferimenti che denotano la persona colta, fino a suggerire analisi di tipo relativistico e quantico, filosofico e metafisico: "...e questo è così vero che mi meraviglia che la relatività e la teoria dei quanti non siano state scoperte dai biologi molto prima che dai fisici."
"Tutti questi stati di anacronismo, così come altre stranezze temporali descritte in questo libro, indicano quanto sia profondo l'abisso fra l'astratto e il reale, il cronologico e l'ontologico, nel nostro modo di concepire e percepire il tempo."
"In quell'attimo mi fu subito chiaro che il parkinsonismo non può essere considerato come qualcosa che aumenta o diminuisce per quantità finite. Di colpo compresi che il parkinsonismo era una propensione, una tendenza, che non aveva un minimo o un massimo, né unità finite; che esso era anumerico; che dal primo, infinitesimale accenno esso poteva procedere, attraverso una infinita moltitudine di incrementi infinitesimali, fino a raggiungere una gravità infinita, e poi più infinita, e poi ancora più infinita. […] Così, il più piccolo accenno di parkinsonismo (o di emicrania, o di angoscia, o di estasi) prefigura il tutto, ha già, in miniatura, la qualità del tutto, è il punto di partenza di un'espansione potenzialmente infinta."
"Si può soltanto dire che in larga maggioranza i sopravvissuti scesero irrevocabilmente, cerchio dopo cerchio, nel baratro di una malattia sempre più profonda, senza speranza, vittime di una solitudine inimmaginabile, e di tutto, proprio la solitudine era forse la cosa più insopportabile. "Come la malattia è la peggiore afflizione, così la peggiore afflizione della malattia è la solitudine... La solitudine è un tormento non comminato neppure nell'inferno" (J. Donne)."
Oltre alla meraviglia nello scoprire le storie dei suoi pazienti, e all'interesse nel leggere le riflessioni di Sacks stesso – un uomo che ammette, per sua storia, di essere mezzo medico e mezzo artista e di avere unito le due cose nella sua esperienza personale – resta il rammarico nel rendersi conto che, per la maggioranza dei medici, l'esercizio della medicina resta niente altro che quella faccenda meramente meccanicistica così ben spiegata e deplorata dall'autore di queste pagine. Il gran pregio di questo libro è proprio di insegnare ad analizzare i problemi guardandone le due facce: da un lato quella meccanica, che si può sterilizzare e isolare dal resto del mondo; e dall'altro lato quella che non si può misurare in numeri o indici ma solo in sensazioni e sentimenti. Nell'analisi di entrambe, Sacks sa sempre mantenersi estremamente concreto e rigorosamente scientifico.
"Tutto il mio libro si occupa di queste domande ("come stai?", "come va?")[…] Il dialogo su come uno sta può essere espresso solo in termini umani, in termini familiari, che vengono facilmente e naturalmente a tutti noi; e può svolgersi solo se vi è un confronto umano diretto, una relazione "io-tu", fra il mondo di discorso dei medici e quello dei malati."
"Salute, malattie e reazioni non possono essere capite in vitro da sole; possono essere capite solo se riferite a noi, quali espressioni della nostra natura, del nostro vivere, del nostro esser-ci. E tuttavia la medicina moderna, in misura sempre maggiore, prescinde dalla nostra esistenza, o col ridurci a repliche identiche che reagiscono a "stimoli" prefissati in modi altrettanto prefissati, o col considerare le nostre malattie semplicemente come fenomeni estranei e cattivi, senza relazione organica con la persona malata. Il corrispondente terapeutico di idee del genere, naturalmente, è l'idea che si debba aggredire la malattia con tutte le armi di cui si dispone, e che si possa sferrare l'attacco del tutto impunemente, senza un solo pensiero per la persona che è malata. Tali concezioni, che dominano sempre più l'intero panorama medico, sono tanto mistiche e manichee quanto sono meccaniche e inumane, e sono tanto più perniciose in quanto non sono realmente capite ed esplicitamente dichiarate e confessate."
"...bisogna smettere di considerare tutti i pazienti come copie conformi, e onorare ciascuno di loro con un'attenzione individuale, attenzione a come sta lui, singolarmente, alle sue personali reazioni e propensioni; in questo modo, avendo il paziente come proprio uguale, compagno di esplorazione e non marionetta, si possono trovare vie terapeutiche che sono migliori di altre, tattiche che si possono modificare secondo le esigenze della situazione. Dato uno "spazio di azione politica" non più semplice o convergente, l'intuito è l'unica guida sicura: e in questo il paziente può benissimo superare il suo medico."
"Senza loro desiderio né colpa, questi pazienti si trovano a esplorare gli abissi e le possibilità estreme dell'essere e della sofferenza umani. Le loro non cercate crocifissioni non sono senza frutto, se consentono di aiutare o illuminare altri, se ci portano a una maggior comprensione della natura dell'afflizione, dell'attenzione amorevole e della cura strettamente medica. […] Ciò che vediamo è, in definitiva, l'assoluta insufficienza della medicina meccanicistica, la totale inadeguatezza di una visione meccanicistica del mondo. Questi malati sono smentite viventi al pensiero meccanicistico, così come sono esempi viventi di un pensiero biologico. […] Ci ricordano che siamo sovrasviluppati in fatto di competenza meccanica, ma manchiamo di intelligenza, intuizione, consapevolezza biologiche; ed è questo, soprattutto, che dobbiamo riguadagnare, non solamente la medicina, ma nella scienza in generale."
"...e la particolare gioia che ho provato lavorando con i miei postencefalitici negli ultimi quindici anni è stata la fusione degli approfondimenti scientifici con quelli "romantici", la scoperta che la mia mente e il mio cuore erano parimenti esercitati e coinvolti, il sapere che qualsiasi altra cosa sarebbe stata un abbandono di entrambi."
May 31, 2017
one of the most wonderful books I have ever read in my life ❤😍 and the movie for Robin Williams and Robert de Niro is a magnificent piece of art 👏😍
June 5, 2014
The story is thrilling: the sleepy sickness epidemic that followed WWI left many people with profound Parkinsonian symptoms; some were hardly able to move, never spoke, seemed frozen in time for forty years. A large number of these patients were under Sacks' care at Mount Carmel hopital in New York in 1969 when he decided to try giving them the new drug L-DOPA, and witnessed many of them coming suddenly, vividly to life. But this blurb summary is a gross simplification! Sacks is at pains even in the introductions to point out that L-DOPA is extremely unpredictable, producing different effects even in the same patient, and always leads to some 'tribulations'.
Also, the case studies that form the dramatic heart of the book were less fascinating to me than Sacks' writing around them. In a way, the case studies are richly personal: Sacks insists again and again on treating patients as people, that 'nothing can be reduced to anything' and that 'if we do not listen to our patients we will never learn anything'. However, the clinical detail is extensive and given in terminology that takes time to get used to. When Sacks reflects on their implications, in contrast, he writes in expansive, lucid prose, linking the mysteries of Parkinsonism to quantum mechanics and to lyrical, existential poetry.
This is a wonderful book for writers, because, as often in Sacks' work, it goes to the heart of what forms character, identity, personality. When he asserts that 'style is the deepest thing in one's being', I am struck by the resonance with some of the most thought-provoking philosophy and criticism I have read. The succinct expression here is powerful, and it is fleshed out by meditations on the notion of health as musicality and free flow, of being as moving, which the 'phantasmagoria' of Parkinsonism most graphically disrupts and distorts.
A section on stage and screen interpretations of the original work is included. Sacks, initially concerned that any adaptation would be 'unreal' was delighted by Pinter's response A Kind of Alaska: "I felt Pinter had given me as much as I gave him: I had given him a reality - and he had given me one back."
Ultimately, Sacks eloquently calls for an existential medicine. Over and over he emphasises how deeply affected patients are by their effective imprisonment in a 'Total Institution' and describes how they respond to music, visitors, trips out, as well as to the physical and care environment, in extraordinary and radical ways. Awakenings allows us to glimpse deep truths about health and disease, and their integrity with personhood, that should transform the ways we think about them.
Also, the case studies that form the dramatic heart of the book were less fascinating to me than Sacks' writing around them. In a way, the case studies are richly personal: Sacks insists again and again on treating patients as people, that 'nothing can be reduced to anything' and that 'if we do not listen to our patients we will never learn anything'. However, the clinical detail is extensive and given in terminology that takes time to get used to. When Sacks reflects on their implications, in contrast, he writes in expansive, lucid prose, linking the mysteries of Parkinsonism to quantum mechanics and to lyrical, existential poetry.
This is a wonderful book for writers, because, as often in Sacks' work, it goes to the heart of what forms character, identity, personality. When he asserts that 'style is the deepest thing in one's being', I am struck by the resonance with some of the most thought-provoking philosophy and criticism I have read. The succinct expression here is powerful, and it is fleshed out by meditations on the notion of health as musicality and free flow, of being as moving, which the 'phantasmagoria' of Parkinsonism most graphically disrupts and distorts.
A section on stage and screen interpretations of the original work is included. Sacks, initially concerned that any adaptation would be 'unreal' was delighted by Pinter's response A Kind of Alaska: "I felt Pinter had given me as much as I gave him: I had given him a reality - and he had given me one back."
Ultimately, Sacks eloquently calls for an existential medicine. Over and over he emphasises how deeply affected patients are by their effective imprisonment in a 'Total Institution' and describes how they respond to music, visitors, trips out, as well as to the physical and care environment, in extraordinary and radical ways. Awakenings allows us to glimpse deep truths about health and disease, and their integrity with personhood, that should transform the ways we think about them.
September 13, 2016
I’m going to try to limit my rating to the quality of the book itself and not the events it portrays. I’m afraid under that criteria I can’t rate Awakenings any better than a ‘2’ for the majority of it, although the portions added in 1982 and 1990 are better written than the original material from 1972. This book has an unfortunate quality of being neither here nor there. Much of the book is filled with highly technical terms and seems that it was not really written with the layman in mind, and yet often Sacks starts waxing philosophical in a way not suitable for a strictly medical case study. He also does a poor job of expressing why he continued trying L-DOPA on new patients despite the large number of often spectacular, sometimes perhaps fatal, failures in this population — failures that happened quite quickly. (Most ‘Awakenings’ lasted only a few days to a few weeks in the luckiest cases and then started to collapse into intolerable agitative symptoms.) His descriptions to me read as though most of the patients ended up worse off after L-DOPA than they were before, a rather impressive feat given how badly off they were to start. The 1982 epilogue suggests there were therapeutic benefits that weren't well described compared to the negative effects, and patients who did better but were not spectacular enough to include in the 20 presented case studies, but some of the included cases still seem grossly irresponsible to me as a reader. The writing also seems as though Sacks at this time fundamentally lacked an of understanding of how other people worked. This is not as strange as it seems at first glance, since Sacks is not a psychologist. He’s a neurologist who has struggled with near-paralyzing shyness. In the additions written in 1982 and 1990 he seems to have outgrown some of that psychological ignorance, but unfortunately the 1972 portion where it is present is the meat of the book. I would also be remiss if I did not mention that the book contains 173 footnotes, many of them essay length. In my opinion, this is just bad writing technique. The material should have either been incorporated into the body of the work, or omitted entirely.
June 11, 2018
4,5
Este livro traz-nos a experiência única e real de um neurologista (Dr Oliver Sacks) que consegue "acordar" temporariamente alguns pacientes de um estado de letargia profunda, no final da década de 60, com a revolucionária L-Dopa.
É uma obra de particular interesse para qualquer um que se interesse pela área das neurociências mas que lida com temas profundamente humanos, pela ótica humilde de Oliver Sacks, que deixa o complexo de deus (tão típico de médico-escritor) de lado e encara a experiência como uma aprendizagem não só científica mas principalmente humanitária, com as diferentes relações que cada paciente estabelece não apenas com o médico mas com a terapêutica e a doença.
Foi um livro que me deixou com vontade de ler toda a bibliografia do autor (além de com um interesse redobrado na área da neurologia)) eque aconselho a qualquer interessado (mesmo sem grandes conhecimentos médicos, há notas informativas que explicam o necessário).
A única coisa que mudaria é a organização do livro, mas suponho que seja uma questão com a edição do mesmo.
Este livro traz-nos a experiência única e real de um neurologista (Dr Oliver Sacks) que consegue "acordar" temporariamente alguns pacientes de um estado de letargia profunda, no final da década de 60, com a revolucionária L-Dopa.
É uma obra de particular interesse para qualquer um que se interesse pela área das neurociências mas que lida com temas profundamente humanos, pela ótica humilde de Oliver Sacks, que deixa o complexo de deus (tão típico de médico-escritor) de lado e encara a experiência como uma aprendizagem não só científica mas principalmente humanitária, com as diferentes relações que cada paciente estabelece não apenas com o médico mas com a terapêutica e a doença.
Foi um livro que me deixou com vontade de ler toda a bibliografia do autor (além de com um interesse redobrado na área da neurologia)) eque aconselho a qualquer interessado (mesmo sem grandes conhecimentos médicos, há notas informativas que explicam o necessário).
A única coisa que mudaria é a organização do livro, mas suponho que seja uma questão com a edição do mesmo.
March 24, 2019
Simply astonishing. My first experience with Oliver Sachs, long before any movie. Stumbled across it while browsing a tiny one room library located in the charming community of Vankleek Hill, Ontario where I lived at the time, and immediately became absorbed by the history of the so-called Spanish flu, its effects and the incredible results produced by Sachs' medical intervention. Not least affecting was the eloquence with which Sachs wrote about the patients in his care, provoking intense feelings of empathy and compassion for the patients. Everyone should read this in order to experience the same profound awakening I have, I thought at the time. Then came the movie. As much as I respect Penny Marshall's directing abilities and enjoy some of Robin Williams' work, the movie has to be one of the biggest disappointments of all time, in my book.
April 2, 2013
Eh, this book was somewhat of a let down I thought. There is a marvelous story here, but this book couldn't decide if it wanted to be a clinical write up of these patients, or appeal to the masses. It tried to walk the line between the two and failed. Just as I would get into the story about a patient, a bunch of medical terms about their condition would pop up, I'd have NO clue what they meant, and the enchantment would end. Three stars for the effort, and because the substance is pretty amazing.
May 3, 2019
Una barbaridad de libro.
Sacks nos narra de forma magistral las vivencias en el hospital Monte Carmelo, de Nueva York, de una serie de pacientes que sufren de una enfermedad que fue epidémica: la encefalitis letargica o enfermedad del sueño. La epidemia tuvo lugar en los años veinte.
El libro se mete en los casos clínicos de cada uno de los pacientes y su posterior respuesta a la L-dopa. La forma de aproximarse a ellos por parte del autor es dramática y compasiva, y uno logra hacer empatía con muchos de los pacientes, por lo menos a mí se me hizo más fácil, ya que convivo con una enfermedad neurodegenerativa.
Me gustó mucho el autor, y no puedo esperar para ver la película de mismo nombre cuyos protagonistas son Robert De Niro y Robin Williams. Y obviamente, leer mucho más de lo que escribió en vida.
Sacks nos narra de forma magistral las vivencias en el hospital Monte Carmelo, de Nueva York, de una serie de pacientes que sufren de una enfermedad que fue epidémica: la encefalitis letargica o enfermedad del sueño. La epidemia tuvo lugar en los años veinte.
El libro se mete en los casos clínicos de cada uno de los pacientes y su posterior respuesta a la L-dopa. La forma de aproximarse a ellos por parte del autor es dramática y compasiva, y uno logra hacer empatía con muchos de los pacientes, por lo menos a mí se me hizo más fácil, ya que convivo con una enfermedad neurodegenerativa.
Me gustó mucho el autor, y no puedo esperar para ver la película de mismo nombre cuyos protagonistas son Robert De Niro y Robin Williams. Y obviamente, leer mucho más de lo que escribió en vida.
May 16, 2022
After reading fresh references to Awakenings in Oliver Sacks’ last book The River of Consciousness, I was motivated finally to read the original. I had already read many times over the years about his astonishing work with the post-encephalitic (sleepy sickness) patients beginning in the sixties: through various references in his many books, in his wonderful autobiography On the Move, in Lawrence Weschler’s bio And How are you Dr Sacks?, the 1973 British TV documentary (which I remembered watching with a sense of amazement long before I’d ever heard of Sacks) – and not forgetting the fictionalized film version. But never the original work.
So this was a bit of a surprise, though it shouldn’t have been. It was written when he was still a young unknown neurologist and considered somewhat of an eccentric in that field, and it’s addressed to his fellow physicians. You can see his writing style, that later would make him so famous to general audiences, emerging here; it’s precise and literate, yet this work is quite unusual for a medical monograph too, in that the author isn’t at all detached from his subjects. Rather, it is an impassioned and deeply personal account, and Sacks’ empathy, caring and respect for his patients come through strongly, just as it does in his later popularized accounts.
The core of the book consists of the fascinating and heart-rending individual case studies of twenty patients who were struck down with sleepy sickness in the epidemic after WW1, institutionalized as their conditions worsened, then abandoned for up to 40 years, and their troubled re-awakening then relapse under the so-called “wonder drug” L-Dopa.
But that’s little more than a third of it. There are many other sections, prefaces, prologues and appendices, all with extensive footnotes (Sacks’ hallmark if ever there was one!). They cover the history of sleepy sickness, its relationship to Parkinson’s disease, the nature of wonder drugs and of “punctuated” consciousness (which most of his patients experienced); there are more general perspectives on all the patients (80 or more) that he cared for – how they coped with their disease and the inadequacy of conventional medicine.
Epilogues for two later editions in the decades following, relate the progress of the surviving patients (in 1990); there are Addenda as more became known about the effects of L-Dopa on patients with ordinary Parkinson’s Disease (and indicating how prescient Sacks was in the 1960s); a section on abnormal EEG traces; Chaos theory (as it related to the impossibility of finding a tolerable dose of L-Dopa) and so on. There are even references to the Arts - how the documentary came to be made, and a rather moving piece on Sacks’ interactions with Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro during the shooting of the movie.
It’s complex and compelling though not an easy read, and full of unfamiliar medical terms (many of which I was pleased to see in my Kobo’s dictionary).
In the Preface Sacks says,
“Running through the book is a metaphysical theme – the notion that it is insufficient to consider disease in purely mechanical or chemical terms, that it must be considered equally in biological or metaphysical terms,”
and indeed there are extensive references to the works of philosophers such as Nietzsche or Wittgenstein so it’s not “scientific” in the traditional sense of medical works either, and I can see why it was received so coolly by his peers at the time.
Overall, what comes across here is Sacks’ total dedication to his patients; it is truly a remarkable thing to experience.
BTW, Sacks mentions that he wished he’d been able to somehow include the TV documentary with the case studies. It’s on Youtube now and is well worth watching.
So this was a bit of a surprise, though it shouldn’t have been. It was written when he was still a young unknown neurologist and considered somewhat of an eccentric in that field, and it’s addressed to his fellow physicians. You can see his writing style, that later would make him so famous to general audiences, emerging here; it’s precise and literate, yet this work is quite unusual for a medical monograph too, in that the author isn’t at all detached from his subjects. Rather, it is an impassioned and deeply personal account, and Sacks’ empathy, caring and respect for his patients come through strongly, just as it does in his later popularized accounts.
The core of the book consists of the fascinating and heart-rending individual case studies of twenty patients who were struck down with sleepy sickness in the epidemic after WW1, institutionalized as their conditions worsened, then abandoned for up to 40 years, and their troubled re-awakening then relapse under the so-called “wonder drug” L-Dopa.
But that’s little more than a third of it. There are many other sections, prefaces, prologues and appendices, all with extensive footnotes (Sacks’ hallmark if ever there was one!). They cover the history of sleepy sickness, its relationship to Parkinson’s disease, the nature of wonder drugs and of “punctuated” consciousness (which most of his patients experienced); there are more general perspectives on all the patients (80 or more) that he cared for – how they coped with their disease and the inadequacy of conventional medicine.
Epilogues for two later editions in the decades following, relate the progress of the surviving patients (in 1990); there are Addenda as more became known about the effects of L-Dopa on patients with ordinary Parkinson’s Disease (and indicating how prescient Sacks was in the 1960s); a section on abnormal EEG traces; Chaos theory (as it related to the impossibility of finding a tolerable dose of L-Dopa) and so on. There are even references to the Arts - how the documentary came to be made, and a rather moving piece on Sacks’ interactions with Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro during the shooting of the movie.
It’s complex and compelling though not an easy read, and full of unfamiliar medical terms (many of which I was pleased to see in my Kobo’s dictionary).
In the Preface Sacks says,
“Running through the book is a metaphysical theme – the notion that it is insufficient to consider disease in purely mechanical or chemical terms, that it must be considered equally in biological or metaphysical terms,”
and indeed there are extensive references to the works of philosophers such as Nietzsche or Wittgenstein so it’s not “scientific” in the traditional sense of medical works either, and I can see why it was received so coolly by his peers at the time.
Overall, what comes across here is Sacks’ total dedication to his patients; it is truly a remarkable thing to experience.
BTW, Sacks mentions that he wished he’d been able to somehow include the TV documentary with the case studies. It’s on Youtube now and is well worth watching.
October 27, 2017
Non potevo non leggerlo dopo aver visto il film (ho un meccanismo interno avverso e contrario: se ho letto il libro non posso vedere il film, se vedo il film devo leggere anche il libro).
L'ho letto come un romanzo d'avventura, l'ho studiato come un libro di testo. Un'odissea dolorosa e infinitamente umana, quella del dottor S. e dei suoi pazienti. Che tutto capivano, ma non potevano vivere. E quando sono tornati alla vita sono stati sopraffatti da una fisicità sfuggita al controllo del cervello.
La sofferenza di qui tic, delle posture, della scialorrea, dell'acinesia, del congelamento, degli orrori e delle visioni notturne, S. te la vivere sulla pelle e nel cervello. Senza cadere in pietismi, senza calcare la mano, senza affondare nella retorica. Con stile profondamente partecipe ma non disperato. Con una umanità incredibile. Non riesco a pensare a Rose, Frances, Lilian, Leonard ea tutti gli altri se non con sgomento. Per una vita vissuta dietro le sbarre, senza la "consolazione" di stare pagando per un crimine. Senza la speranza di rinascere.
E poi, il miracolo. Che si porta dietro un carico di sofferenza forse ancora maggiore. Togliendo in pochi attimi quello che con tanta generosità aveva dato.
Ma è l'abisso, gli abissi mentali in cui sono precipitati gli encefalitici la cosa più angosciante. Svegliarsi e sapere che – come una bomba ad orologeria – si tornerà a vivere come prima, a non-vivere.
L'ho letto come un romanzo d'avventura, l'ho studiato come un libro di testo. Un'odissea dolorosa e infinitamente umana, quella del dottor S. e dei suoi pazienti. Che tutto capivano, ma non potevano vivere. E quando sono tornati alla vita sono stati sopraffatti da una fisicità sfuggita al controllo del cervello.
La sofferenza di qui tic, delle posture, della scialorrea, dell'acinesia, del congelamento, degli orrori e delle visioni notturne, S. te la vivere sulla pelle e nel cervello. Senza cadere in pietismi, senza calcare la mano, senza affondare nella retorica. Con stile profondamente partecipe ma non disperato. Con una umanità incredibile. Non riesco a pensare a Rose, Frances, Lilian, Leonard ea tutti gli altri se non con sgomento. Per una vita vissuta dietro le sbarre, senza la "consolazione" di stare pagando per un crimine. Senza la speranza di rinascere.
E poi, il miracolo. Che si porta dietro un carico di sofferenza forse ancora maggiore. Togliendo in pochi attimi quello che con tanta generosità aveva dato.
Ma è l'abisso, gli abissi mentali in cui sono precipitati gli encefalitici la cosa più angosciante. Svegliarsi e sapere che – come una bomba ad orologeria – si tornerà a vivere come prima, a non-vivere.
August 18, 2012
This was the first of Sacks's books I read, and I had never read anything like it. The discovery that a chemical could bring 'frozen' people to consciousness again after an apparent sleep of years, was mind blowing to read about - and literally mind blowing for some of those who emerged for a time from the effects of their meningitis and then sank out of consciousness again. Sacks recorded the process as a scientist, and a man who is deeply concerned about the human condition and for his patients as people.
It's a long book, but this is necessary to tell the stories of the group who trialled l.Dopa with the insight and compassion Sacks gives them.
For me, the film came nowhere near the real meaning of the book, because it only told the story of a very few patients and focused on one. This made for human drama, but lost the scale of the double tragedy.
It's a long book, but this is necessary to tell the stories of the group who trialled l.Dopa with the insight and compassion Sacks gives them.
For me, the film came nowhere near the real meaning of the book, because it only told the story of a very few patients and focused on one. This made for human drama, but lost the scale of the double tragedy.
October 13, 2015
Oliver Sacks M.D. was an eminent neurologist. He died in his home in New York City at age 82 in August 2015. Dr. Sacks has written many books but is most famous for his book “Awakenings.” On hearing of his death, I decided to read his book again.
In 1966 while working as a neurologist for Mount Carmel Hospital in the Bronx he noted many patients had spent decades in a strange frozen state with some symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. They were the survivors of the 1916-1917 encephalitis (Sleeping Sickness) epidemic that swept the world during World War I. I studied about this epidemic in school but remember seeing patient in this frozen state from the brief epidemic that hit the central states and prairie provinces of Canada in the early 1950s.
Sacks treated these patients with an experimental drug called L-dopa, which enabled many of the patients to recover. The book is a collection of stories about the recovery of some of the patients. The book is written using medical terminology so non scientific reads may have a problem with frequent trips to the dictionary.
A play by Harold Pinter was successful and a 1990 film starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams was on the Oscar list. I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. Jonathan Davis did a good job narrating the book.
In 1966 while working as a neurologist for Mount Carmel Hospital in the Bronx he noted many patients had spent decades in a strange frozen state with some symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. They were the survivors of the 1916-1917 encephalitis (Sleeping Sickness) epidemic that swept the world during World War I. I studied about this epidemic in school but remember seeing patient in this frozen state from the brief epidemic that hit the central states and prairie provinces of Canada in the early 1950s.
Sacks treated these patients with an experimental drug called L-dopa, which enabled many of the patients to recover. The book is a collection of stories about the recovery of some of the patients. The book is written using medical terminology so non scientific reads may have a problem with frequent trips to the dictionary.
A play by Harold Pinter was successful and a 1990 film starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams was on the Oscar list. I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. Jonathan Davis did a good job narrating the book.
November 8, 2019
QUÉ ONDA ESTE LIBRO, cómo no lo había leído antes, quiero llorar. Es tan bueno que ni siquiera sé cómo opinar o describirlo. Además, es súper completo, información relevante para dar y regalar, aprendí tanto, y aun así creo que voy a tener que leerlo en algún momento de nuevo, porque creo que muchas cosas igual se me escaparon.
Se trata de pacientes que luego de una epidemia (de encefalitis letárgica o enfermedad del sueño) viven casi en coma, y DÉCADAS DESPUÉS son "devueltos a la vida" gracias a un medicamento nuevo, la L-Dopa, que me imagino que tiene que ver con la dopamina. La mayoría tiene un regreso espectacular, y luego... bueno, viven algo parecido a lo de "Flores para Algernon", debut y despedida. Recuperación, felicidad, éxtasis, regresión, horror. Aunque hay excepciones, y es que hay algunos que pueden volver al mundo para siempre, con sus limitaciones. Hay historias de esperanza, pero otras bastantes trágicas. La mayoría, de todos modos, no se arrepiente de haber intentado el medicamento pues, aun si a la larga no funcionaba, tomarlo fue como "volver a existir".
Lo más llamativo, para mí, de todo esto, es lo misteriosa y fuerte que es la psiquis humana. Cómo hay quienes podrían haber realmente superado la enfermedad, pero no lo hicieron porque su vida ya estaba "construida" para permanecer en tal enfermedad, y ya no podían volver atrás. Cómo la voluntad es más fuerte que cualquier medicamento. Hay una paciente que, antes de ser tratada con la L-Dopa, todas las Semanas Santas caía en una especie de trance místico, completamente en coma, y no reaccionaba con ninguna cosa que le dieran. Pero luego de la experiencia L-Dopa, nunca más vuelve a tener esos estados místicos y es que dice que "ha vivido suficientes cosas raras tal cual es". O sea, que su mente era MÁS FUERTE que los remedios, y así probablemente la de todos nosotros.
La psiquis humana también permite que, quienes tienen personas queridas en el mundo, sanen mágicamente cuando ellas vuelven a visitarlas luego de su "despertar", y es lindo de ver, aunque también da mucha pena. Y también se ven historias de mucha resiliencia, porque no debe ser nada fácil dormirse como un jovenzuelo y despertar casi octogenario. Hay de esto un caso de una mujer joven que me impresionó especialmente, una que se "duerme" recién casada y de pronto despierta a ser una abuela. Hay que realmente tener amor a la vida para hacer la paz con esa situación. No sé si yo podría (ojalá nunca me toque tal encrucijada), pero ella lo hace, y ni siquiera con rabia a la vida, por haberle dado tal juego de cartas. Ve a los nietos, conversa con la hija y todos tan contentos.
Otra cosa interesante, y agridulce, y hermosa, y misteriosa, es ver cómo la personalidad es la que "ejecuta" al cuerpo, y no viceversa. La mayoría vuelven a ser ellos mismos luego de que su fisiología lo permite. Eso me hace preguntarme, ¿hasta qué punto, por ejemplo, los ancianos y los enfermos viven como tal porque no tienen otra opción? En otras condiciones físicas no serían así. ¿Cuánta gente estará atrapada en cuerpos deficientes?
Verlo así me hace incluso entender y aceptar la muerte... la necesidad de, cuando este cuerpo ya ha expirado, buscar otro capullo en donde hacer crecer la mariposa. Dejar el auto carreteado para cambiarse al último modelo. Porque, por muy fuerte que sea el espíritu personal, no puede realizarse ni ser pleno en ciertas circunstancias. Hay un alma detrás, sin duda, que maneja al cuerpo... pero a veces el cuerpo no está en condiciones de ser manejado, y el alma está simplemente ahí atrapada, esperando. Que es lo que el doc de hecho dice que les pasa a los pacientes catatónicos: la pausa y la espera. Pero no la total ausencia.
Por último, quiero destacar la calidad humana del doctor Sacks. Para él, los pacientes son personas, no meramente estudios médicos, entonces cada historia que cuenta la hace de un total lugar de apertura y empatía. Las cosas que les pasan a estos pacientes a veces son bastante terribles: tiritan, babean, gritan, se ponen violentos, se caen, caen en manías sexuales cuando se les despierta la libido, pero él siempre es capaz de ver a la persona más allá de eso, y de tratarla con compasión y ternura. No creo que sea mentira que el amor sea la llave para todas las cosas porque es justamente gracias a ese amor que él llega a ellos. Y nosotros tras el doc. Podemos también verlos más allá de su temporal tragedia, como alguien que hubiera podido ser uno mismo.
En fin, podría decir tanto TANTO más, pero mejor que lo lean ustedes. Si les tinca, claro. Yo lo dejo ultra recomendado. Es power, eso sí, 600 páginas, no para leerlo así casualmente de un día para otro, pero igual vale la pena. En caso de apuros o de no querer investigar la parte realmente médica, mejor remitirse a los casos. Son interesantes, (agri)dulces y también intrigantes. Uno se pregunta qué cómo eran en realidad cada uno de ellos, qué motivos tuvieron para venir a la vida, qué motivos podríamos tener nosotros, por qué pasan las cosas qué pasan y cuál es la fuerza detrás. Uno se acuerda, también, en el vértigo de cómo pasan las décadas en este estudio, que uno también tiene fecha de vencimiento, aunque todavía no se manifieste, y quizá nunca lo haga de esa manera específica (ojalá). Y que algún día también fallará, de un modo u otro.
Y aun así, todo el viaje vale la pena. La vida.
Al final del libro supe que éste, aunque tuvo una recepción mala al principio (los testimonios son bastante duros y nadie quería creer que la L-Dopa no era tan mágica al final), luego se hizo bastante famoso. Se hicieron radionovelas, películas, series, y la más conocida una donde De Niro se ganó el Óscar. Y ya la encontré en YouTube ehehe, sin embargo todavía no la he visto. Más tarde quizá ponga el link, aunque googleando fácil se llega. Actuó Robin Williams también. Y la Judy Dench.
QUÉ COSA TAN BUENA, en conclusión. Hermosa y terrible.
Y el doctor Sacks tiene el mejor gusto para elegir citas.
CITAS DESTACADAS:
1. De Rolando O., que realmente amaba la vida.
Hay otra circunstancia que creo que merece ser recordada: una semana antes de su muerte, el señor O. recobró de pronto la lucidez, y volvió a hablar y pensar normalmente. Y, lo que es aún más importante, "recuperó" sentimientos que habían permanecido dispersos y reprimidos durante cincuenta años, dejó de estar "esquizofrénico" y volvió a ser una persona sencilla y tratable.
A lo largo de esos días finales hablamos en varias ocasiones, y el tono de nuestras conversaciones fue establecido por el propio señor O. "No trate de engañarme con mentiras piadosas", me dijo. "Sé cómo están las cosas. Me he quedado en los huesos. Estoy a punto para la marcha".
Durante los últimos días de su vida, bromeaba con las enfermeras, y le pidió al rabino que le leyera un salmo. Pocas horas antes de dormir me hizo esta confesión "En 1922 estuve a punto de suicidarme. Me alegro de no haberlo hecho. La cosa no ha estado tan mal, a pesar de la encefalitis y lo demás".
2. Cuando la gente sabe, sabe.
En julio de 1971, la señora B., que no era dada a tener "corazonadas", y gozaba por aquel entonces de buena salud, tuvo una súbita premonición de que iba a morirse, tan clara y perentoria, que telefoneó a sus hijas. "Ven a verme", le dijo a cada una de ellas. "Mañana será tarde. No, me encuentro perfectamente. No hay nada que me preocupe, pero sé que me moriré esta noche, mientras duerma." Su tono era sereno y objetivo, y carecía por completo de excitación. Resultaba tan convincente que empezamos a preocuparnos, y le hicimos análisis de sangre, cardiogramas y otras pruebas, que dieron resultados normales en todos los casos.
A la caída de aquella tarde, la señora B. recorrió el pabellón, con una dignidad que cortaba en seco cualquier comentario irónico, y les dijo "¡Adiós!", al mismo tiempo que les estrechaba la mano, a todos los presentes. Se fue a dormir, y murió, efectivamente, aquella noche.
3. De mis fav <3
A medida que sus períodos de delirio disminuían y aumentaban sus intervalos de lucidez, la señora C. empezó a sentir cierta añoranza de aquellos. "Están desapareciendo", se lamentaba, "los enanitos y las cosas que me hacían compañía. Pronto volveré a ser una vieja fea y solitaria".
Pero no fue así. Al día siguiente de que sus delirios cesaran por fin, tuvo una extraña experiencia mientras estaba en la cama. Empezó con la repentina sensación de que algo extraordinario estaba a punto de suceder, y se le puso la piel de gallina. Sintió entonces la necesidad incoercible de mirar por la ventana y, para su gran sorpresa, vio a un enmascarado que subía por la escalera de incendios. Cuando estuvo a su nivel, el enmascarado blandió un bastón y la apuntó con él, lo cual la llenó de terror, acto seguido le dirigió una "sonrisa diabólica" y se marchó por donde había venido llevándose consigo la escalera de incendios. Fue esto último lo que hizo comprender a la señora C. que había tenido "una visión", una alucinación en la que no sólo había intervenido un hombre, sino también una escalera de incendios.
Al día siguiente, cuando me relató su experiencia, temblaba como un flan, pero de sus palabras y su actitud se traslucía que la experiencia la había dejado contentísima. Aquella noche volvió a ver al enmascarado en la escalera de incendios, pero en esta ocasión se le acercó más y blandió el bastón de una manera que, más que resultar amenazadora, tenía claras connotaciones sexuales.
Al tercer día, la señora C. decidió sincerarse conmigo. "No puede reprocharme nada", me dijo. "Hace más de veinte años que no he vivido ninguna experiencia romántica y, tal como están las cosas, no creo que vaya a vivirla ahora. Creo que estará usted de acuerdo conmigo en eso. ¡No puede prohibirle una amigable alucinación a una anciana llena de frustraciones como yo!". Le respondí que, si sus alucinaciones eran de carácter amistoso y podía dominarlas, tal vez incluso le resultaran beneficiosas, dadas las circunstancias. Consecuencia de ello fue que aquellas alucinaciones perdieran su carácter paranoico y se convirtieran en encuentros puramente amistosos y románticos.
Para tratar con ellas ha desarrollado un notable sentido del humor, así como un tacto y un dominio de sí misma no menos notables: nunca permite que ocurran antes de las ocho de la noche, ni que duren más de treinta o cuarenta minutos como máximo. Si sus familiares se quedan hasta demasiado tarde a hacerle compañía, les explica, en tono amable pero firme "que aguarda la visita de un caballero de fuera de la ciudad", y que no cree que le guste que le hagan esperar a la intemperie.
La señora C. sigue viva y está bien de salud, considerando la gravedad de su dolencia. La expresión de la profunda paz ha vuelto a sus ojos y parece haber recuperado la capacidad de revivir a voluntad, y por tiempo indefinido, las escenas y los momentos de su infancia. El único cambio operado en ella en relación con la época anterior al inicio del tratamiento con L-dopa es que ahora es objeto del amor, las atenciones y los invisibles regalos de un caballero surgido de sus alucinaciones, que la visita fielmente cada noche.
4. Muy sabio el doc Sacks.
Este libro, en su totalidad, se ocupa del mejor modo de aplicar esas preguntas "¿Cómo se encuentra?", "Qué tal le van las cosas?", a la extraordinaria situación en la que se encuentran ciertos enfermos. Hay mucha respuestas legítimas a esas preguntas "¡Estupendamente!", "Así, así", "¡Muy mal!", "Vamos tirando", "Es como si no fuera el mismo", y etcétera. Y también puede responderse a ellas mediante gestos alusivos o simplemente mostrando cómo se siente uno sin necesidad de utilizar gestos o palabras especiales. Todas esas respuestas son comprendidas intuitivamente y nos permiten hacernos una idea del estado del enfermo.
Pero no es legítimo que el enfermo responda a estar preguntas metafísicas con una lista de "datos" o de medidas acerca de sus signos vitales, de la composición de la sangre y de su orina, etcétera. Millares de datos como esos ni siquiera empiezan a contestar la pregunta esencial; son irrelevantes y además dan una imagen muy imperfecta que no puede compararse con la claridad de la que ofrecen los sentidos y las intuiciones del enfermo: El pulso, la orina, el sudor, se han juramentado para no decir nada, para no dar indicación alguna de que haya cualquier enfermedad peligrosa y no obstante tengo la sensación de que, insensibilemente, la enfermedad prevalece.
El diálogo acerca de cómo se siente el enfermo sólo puede desarrollarse en términos humanos, en términos familiares, que surgen con facilidad y de un modo natural en cada uno de nosotros, y sólo puede mantenerse si hay una confrontación directa y humana, una relación de "tú a tú" entre el universo del discurso de los médicos y el de los pacientes.
5. El chi?
Debemos aceptar la posibilidad de que exista un abanico casi ilimitado de adaptaciones y reorganizaciones funcionales de todas clases, que van desde los niveles hormonal, químico y celular hasta la propia organización del yo y la "voluntad de recuperar la salud". Se observan una y otra vez, y no sólo en el contexto de la L-dopa y el parkinsonismo, sino también en el del cáncer, la tuberculosis, las neurosis - de todas las enfermedades, en fin - notables, inesperadas e "inexplicables", resoluciones en momentos en los que todo parece estar perdido. Debemos aceptar con regocijada sorpresa que estas cosas ocurran, y que los pacientes tratados con L-dopa también se beneficien de ellas.
¿Por qué ocurren?, así como, ¿qué es lo que ocurre?, son preguntas que no somos capaces de contestar, ya que la salud tiene raíces mucho más profundas que cualquier enfermedad.
6. El valor de lo humano.
Es aún más importante establecer las relaciones adecuadas con el mundo y, sobre todo, con otros seres humanos o con otro ser humano, pues las relaciones humanas son las que más ayudan al paciente a estar en el mundo.
Sentir la presencia del mundo en su totalidad depende de sentir la totalidad de la presencia de otra persona en cuanto tal: la realidad nos es proporcionada por la realidad de los seres reales, y nos es arrebatada por la irrealidad de los seres irreales, de los fantasmas. Nuestro sentido de la realidad, de la confianza, de la seguridad, depende de manera fundamental de nuestras relaciones humanas. Incluso una sola buena relación humana puede ser una tabla de salvación cuando surgen los problemas, una estrella polar y una brújula que nos guían cuando tenemos que navegar por un océano de dificultades.
Hemos visto una y otra vez, a lo largo de las historias clínicas de nuestros pacientes, cómo una sola, pero buena, relación humana, puede salvarlos de sus problemas. La amistad posee virtudes curativas, y todos somos un poco los médicos de los demás. "No hallaremos mejor medicamento en nuestra vida que un amigo fiel", dijo Sir Thomas Browne. Y el mundo es el hospital donde tiene lugar la curación.
::::::
Ya, tenía como cinco citas más, que hablaban de cómo la música ayuda, del poder del amor, otros casos interesantes, pero por primera vez me estoy pasando del límite de caracteres 8-), así que lo dejo hasta acá.
¡Es muy bueno!
Se trata de pacientes que luego de una epidemia (de encefalitis letárgica o enfermedad del sueño) viven casi en coma, y DÉCADAS DESPUÉS son "devueltos a la vida" gracias a un medicamento nuevo, la L-Dopa, que me imagino que tiene que ver con la dopamina. La mayoría tiene un regreso espectacular, y luego... bueno, viven algo parecido a lo de "Flores para Algernon", debut y despedida. Recuperación, felicidad, éxtasis, regresión, horror. Aunque hay excepciones, y es que hay algunos que pueden volver al mundo para siempre, con sus limitaciones. Hay historias de esperanza, pero otras bastantes trágicas. La mayoría, de todos modos, no se arrepiente de haber intentado el medicamento pues, aun si a la larga no funcionaba, tomarlo fue como "volver a existir".
Lo más llamativo, para mí, de todo esto, es lo misteriosa y fuerte que es la psiquis humana. Cómo hay quienes podrían haber realmente superado la enfermedad, pero no lo hicieron porque su vida ya estaba "construida" para permanecer en tal enfermedad, y ya no podían volver atrás. Cómo la voluntad es más fuerte que cualquier medicamento. Hay una paciente que, antes de ser tratada con la L-Dopa, todas las Semanas Santas caía en una especie de trance místico, completamente en coma, y no reaccionaba con ninguna cosa que le dieran. Pero luego de la experiencia L-Dopa, nunca más vuelve a tener esos estados místicos y es que dice que "ha vivido suficientes cosas raras tal cual es". O sea, que su mente era MÁS FUERTE que los remedios, y así probablemente la de todos nosotros.
La psiquis humana también permite que, quienes tienen personas queridas en el mundo, sanen mágicamente cuando ellas vuelven a visitarlas luego de su "despertar", y es lindo de ver, aunque también da mucha pena. Y también se ven historias de mucha resiliencia, porque no debe ser nada fácil dormirse como un jovenzuelo y despertar casi octogenario. Hay de esto un caso de una mujer joven que me impresionó especialmente, una que se "duerme" recién casada y de pronto despierta a ser una abuela. Hay que realmente tener amor a la vida para hacer la paz con esa situación. No sé si yo podría (ojalá nunca me toque tal encrucijada), pero ella lo hace, y ni siquiera con rabia a la vida, por haberle dado tal juego de cartas. Ve a los nietos, conversa con la hija y todos tan contentos.
Otra cosa interesante, y agridulce, y hermosa, y misteriosa, es ver cómo la personalidad es la que "ejecuta" al cuerpo, y no viceversa. La mayoría vuelven a ser ellos mismos luego de que su fisiología lo permite. Eso me hace preguntarme, ¿hasta qué punto, por ejemplo, los ancianos y los enfermos viven como tal porque no tienen otra opción? En otras condiciones físicas no serían así. ¿Cuánta gente estará atrapada en cuerpos deficientes?
Verlo así me hace incluso entender y aceptar la muerte... la necesidad de, cuando este cuerpo ya ha expirado, buscar otro capullo en donde hacer crecer la mariposa. Dejar el auto carreteado para cambiarse al último modelo. Porque, por muy fuerte que sea el espíritu personal, no puede realizarse ni ser pleno en ciertas circunstancias. Hay un alma detrás, sin duda, que maneja al cuerpo... pero a veces el cuerpo no está en condiciones de ser manejado, y el alma está simplemente ahí atrapada, esperando. Que es lo que el doc de hecho dice que les pasa a los pacientes catatónicos: la pausa y la espera. Pero no la total ausencia.
Por último, quiero destacar la calidad humana del doctor Sacks. Para él, los pacientes son personas, no meramente estudios médicos, entonces cada historia que cuenta la hace de un total lugar de apertura y empatía. Las cosas que les pasan a estos pacientes a veces son bastante terribles: tiritan, babean, gritan, se ponen violentos, se caen, caen en manías sexuales cuando se les despierta la libido, pero él siempre es capaz de ver a la persona más allá de eso, y de tratarla con compasión y ternura. No creo que sea mentira que el amor sea la llave para todas las cosas porque es justamente gracias a ese amor que él llega a ellos. Y nosotros tras el doc. Podemos también verlos más allá de su temporal tragedia, como alguien que hubiera podido ser uno mismo.
En fin, podría decir tanto TANTO más, pero mejor que lo lean ustedes. Si les tinca, claro. Yo lo dejo ultra recomendado. Es power, eso sí, 600 páginas, no para leerlo así casualmente de un día para otro, pero igual vale la pena. En caso de apuros o de no querer investigar la parte realmente médica, mejor remitirse a los casos. Son interesantes, (agri)dulces y también intrigantes. Uno se pregunta qué cómo eran en realidad cada uno de ellos, qué motivos tuvieron para venir a la vida, qué motivos podríamos tener nosotros, por qué pasan las cosas qué pasan y cuál es la fuerza detrás. Uno se acuerda, también, en el vértigo de cómo pasan las décadas en este estudio, que uno también tiene fecha de vencimiento, aunque todavía no se manifieste, y quizá nunca lo haga de esa manera específica (ojalá). Y que algún día también fallará, de un modo u otro.
Y aun así, todo el viaje vale la pena. La vida.
Al final del libro supe que éste, aunque tuvo una recepción mala al principio (los testimonios son bastante duros y nadie quería creer que la L-Dopa no era tan mágica al final), luego se hizo bastante famoso. Se hicieron radionovelas, películas, series, y la más conocida una donde De Niro se ganó el Óscar. Y ya la encontré en YouTube ehehe, sin embargo todavía no la he visto. Más tarde quizá ponga el link, aunque googleando fácil se llega. Actuó Robin Williams también. Y la Judy Dench.
QUÉ COSA TAN BUENA, en conclusión. Hermosa y terrible.
Y el doctor Sacks tiene el mejor gusto para elegir citas.
CITAS DESTACADAS:
1. De Rolando O., que realmente amaba la vida.
Hay otra circunstancia que creo que merece ser recordada: una semana antes de su muerte, el señor O. recobró de pronto la lucidez, y volvió a hablar y pensar normalmente. Y, lo que es aún más importante, "recuperó" sentimientos que habían permanecido dispersos y reprimidos durante cincuenta años, dejó de estar "esquizofrénico" y volvió a ser una persona sencilla y tratable.
A lo largo de esos días finales hablamos en varias ocasiones, y el tono de nuestras conversaciones fue establecido por el propio señor O. "No trate de engañarme con mentiras piadosas", me dijo. "Sé cómo están las cosas. Me he quedado en los huesos. Estoy a punto para la marcha".
Durante los últimos días de su vida, bromeaba con las enfermeras, y le pidió al rabino que le leyera un salmo. Pocas horas antes de dormir me hizo esta confesión "En 1922 estuve a punto de suicidarme. Me alegro de no haberlo hecho. La cosa no ha estado tan mal, a pesar de la encefalitis y lo demás".
2. Cuando la gente sabe, sabe.
En julio de 1971, la señora B., que no era dada a tener "corazonadas", y gozaba por aquel entonces de buena salud, tuvo una súbita premonición de que iba a morirse, tan clara y perentoria, que telefoneó a sus hijas. "Ven a verme", le dijo a cada una de ellas. "Mañana será tarde. No, me encuentro perfectamente. No hay nada que me preocupe, pero sé que me moriré esta noche, mientras duerma." Su tono era sereno y objetivo, y carecía por completo de excitación. Resultaba tan convincente que empezamos a preocuparnos, y le hicimos análisis de sangre, cardiogramas y otras pruebas, que dieron resultados normales en todos los casos.
A la caída de aquella tarde, la señora B. recorrió el pabellón, con una dignidad que cortaba en seco cualquier comentario irónico, y les dijo "¡Adiós!", al mismo tiempo que les estrechaba la mano, a todos los presentes. Se fue a dormir, y murió, efectivamente, aquella noche.
3. De mis fav <3
A medida que sus períodos de delirio disminuían y aumentaban sus intervalos de lucidez, la señora C. empezó a sentir cierta añoranza de aquellos. "Están desapareciendo", se lamentaba, "los enanitos y las cosas que me hacían compañía. Pronto volveré a ser una vieja fea y solitaria".
Pero no fue así. Al día siguiente de que sus delirios cesaran por fin, tuvo una extraña experiencia mientras estaba en la cama. Empezó con la repentina sensación de que algo extraordinario estaba a punto de suceder, y se le puso la piel de gallina. Sintió entonces la necesidad incoercible de mirar por la ventana y, para su gran sorpresa, vio a un enmascarado que subía por la escalera de incendios. Cuando estuvo a su nivel, el enmascarado blandió un bastón y la apuntó con él, lo cual la llenó de terror, acto seguido le dirigió una "sonrisa diabólica" y se marchó por donde había venido llevándose consigo la escalera de incendios. Fue esto último lo que hizo comprender a la señora C. que había tenido "una visión", una alucinación en la que no sólo había intervenido un hombre, sino también una escalera de incendios.
Al día siguiente, cuando me relató su experiencia, temblaba como un flan, pero de sus palabras y su actitud se traslucía que la experiencia la había dejado contentísima. Aquella noche volvió a ver al enmascarado en la escalera de incendios, pero en esta ocasión se le acercó más y blandió el bastón de una manera que, más que resultar amenazadora, tenía claras connotaciones sexuales.
Al tercer día, la señora C. decidió sincerarse conmigo. "No puede reprocharme nada", me dijo. "Hace más de veinte años que no he vivido ninguna experiencia romántica y, tal como están las cosas, no creo que vaya a vivirla ahora. Creo que estará usted de acuerdo conmigo en eso. ¡No puede prohibirle una amigable alucinación a una anciana llena de frustraciones como yo!". Le respondí que, si sus alucinaciones eran de carácter amistoso y podía dominarlas, tal vez incluso le resultaran beneficiosas, dadas las circunstancias. Consecuencia de ello fue que aquellas alucinaciones perdieran su carácter paranoico y se convirtieran en encuentros puramente amistosos y románticos.
Para tratar con ellas ha desarrollado un notable sentido del humor, así como un tacto y un dominio de sí misma no menos notables: nunca permite que ocurran antes de las ocho de la noche, ni que duren más de treinta o cuarenta minutos como máximo. Si sus familiares se quedan hasta demasiado tarde a hacerle compañía, les explica, en tono amable pero firme "que aguarda la visita de un caballero de fuera de la ciudad", y que no cree que le guste que le hagan esperar a la intemperie.
La señora C. sigue viva y está bien de salud, considerando la gravedad de su dolencia. La expresión de la profunda paz ha vuelto a sus ojos y parece haber recuperado la capacidad de revivir a voluntad, y por tiempo indefinido, las escenas y los momentos de su infancia. El único cambio operado en ella en relación con la época anterior al inicio del tratamiento con L-dopa es que ahora es objeto del amor, las atenciones y los invisibles regalos de un caballero surgido de sus alucinaciones, que la visita fielmente cada noche.
4. Muy sabio el doc Sacks.
Este libro, en su totalidad, se ocupa del mejor modo de aplicar esas preguntas "¿Cómo se encuentra?", "Qué tal le van las cosas?", a la extraordinaria situación en la que se encuentran ciertos enfermos. Hay mucha respuestas legítimas a esas preguntas "¡Estupendamente!", "Así, así", "¡Muy mal!", "Vamos tirando", "Es como si no fuera el mismo", y etcétera. Y también puede responderse a ellas mediante gestos alusivos o simplemente mostrando cómo se siente uno sin necesidad de utilizar gestos o palabras especiales. Todas esas respuestas son comprendidas intuitivamente y nos permiten hacernos una idea del estado del enfermo.
Pero no es legítimo que el enfermo responda a estar preguntas metafísicas con una lista de "datos" o de medidas acerca de sus signos vitales, de la composición de la sangre y de su orina, etcétera. Millares de datos como esos ni siquiera empiezan a contestar la pregunta esencial; son irrelevantes y además dan una imagen muy imperfecta que no puede compararse con la claridad de la que ofrecen los sentidos y las intuiciones del enfermo: El pulso, la orina, el sudor, se han juramentado para no decir nada, para no dar indicación alguna de que haya cualquier enfermedad peligrosa y no obstante tengo la sensación de que, insensibilemente, la enfermedad prevalece.
El diálogo acerca de cómo se siente el enfermo sólo puede desarrollarse en términos humanos, en términos familiares, que surgen con facilidad y de un modo natural en cada uno de nosotros, y sólo puede mantenerse si hay una confrontación directa y humana, una relación de "tú a tú" entre el universo del discurso de los médicos y el de los pacientes.
5. El chi?
Debemos aceptar la posibilidad de que exista un abanico casi ilimitado de adaptaciones y reorganizaciones funcionales de todas clases, que van desde los niveles hormonal, químico y celular hasta la propia organización del yo y la "voluntad de recuperar la salud". Se observan una y otra vez, y no sólo en el contexto de la L-dopa y el parkinsonismo, sino también en el del cáncer, la tuberculosis, las neurosis - de todas las enfermedades, en fin - notables, inesperadas e "inexplicables", resoluciones en momentos en los que todo parece estar perdido. Debemos aceptar con regocijada sorpresa que estas cosas ocurran, y que los pacientes tratados con L-dopa también se beneficien de ellas.
¿Por qué ocurren?, así como, ¿qué es lo que ocurre?, son preguntas que no somos capaces de contestar, ya que la salud tiene raíces mucho más profundas que cualquier enfermedad.
6. El valor de lo humano.
Es aún más importante establecer las relaciones adecuadas con el mundo y, sobre todo, con otros seres humanos o con otro ser humano, pues las relaciones humanas son las que más ayudan al paciente a estar en el mundo.
Sentir la presencia del mundo en su totalidad depende de sentir la totalidad de la presencia de otra persona en cuanto tal: la realidad nos es proporcionada por la realidad de los seres reales, y nos es arrebatada por la irrealidad de los seres irreales, de los fantasmas. Nuestro sentido de la realidad, de la confianza, de la seguridad, depende de manera fundamental de nuestras relaciones humanas. Incluso una sola buena relación humana puede ser una tabla de salvación cuando surgen los problemas, una estrella polar y una brújula que nos guían cuando tenemos que navegar por un océano de dificultades.
Hemos visto una y otra vez, a lo largo de las historias clínicas de nuestros pacientes, cómo una sola, pero buena, relación humana, puede salvarlos de sus problemas. La amistad posee virtudes curativas, y todos somos un poco los médicos de los demás. "No hallaremos mejor medicamento en nuestra vida que un amigo fiel", dijo Sir Thomas Browne. Y el mundo es el hospital donde tiene lugar la curación.
::::::
Ya, tenía como cinco citas más, que hablaban de cómo la música ayuda, del poder del amor, otros casos interesantes, pero por primera vez me estoy pasando del límite de caracteres 8-), así que lo dejo hasta acá.
¡Es muy bueno!
August 26, 2023
3.5 stars
Interesting but extremely dense. I really hate footnotes!
Interesting but extremely dense. I really hate footnotes!
June 30, 2019
A couple quotes that deeply resonated with me:
"Some of these patients had achieved a state of icy hopelessness akin to serenity: a realistic hopelessness, in those pre-dopa days: they knew they were doomed, and they accepted this with all the courage and equanimity they could muster. Other patients (and, perhaps, to some extent, all of these patients, whatever their surface serenity) had a fierce and impotent sense of outrage: they had been swindled out of the best years of life; they were consumed by the sense of time lost, time wasted; and they yearned incessantly for a twofold miracle – not only a cure for their sickness, but an indemnification for the loss of their lives. They wanted to be given back the time they had lost, to be magically replaced in their youth and their prime."
"The terrors of suffering, sickness and death, of losing ourselves and losing the world, are the most elemental and intense we know; and so too are our dreams of recovery and rebirth, of being wonderfully restored to ourselves and the world.”
"Some of these patients had achieved a state of icy hopelessness akin to serenity: a realistic hopelessness, in those pre-dopa days: they knew they were doomed, and they accepted this with all the courage and equanimity they could muster. Other patients (and, perhaps, to some extent, all of these patients, whatever their surface serenity) had a fierce and impotent sense of outrage: they had been swindled out of the best years of life; they were consumed by the sense of time lost, time wasted; and they yearned incessantly for a twofold miracle – not only a cure for their sickness, but an indemnification for the loss of their lives. They wanted to be given back the time they had lost, to be magically replaced in their youth and their prime."
"The terrors of suffering, sickness and death, of losing ourselves and losing the world, are the most elemental and intense we know; and so too are our dreams of recovery and rebirth, of being wonderfully restored to ourselves and the world.”
November 10, 2019
This is a fascinating and often very moving account of Sacks' famous experiments using a new-at-the-time dopamine medication to treat the "sleeping" victims of the encephalitis lethargica outbreak in the early 20th century. Excoriated at the time for cautioning on L-DOPA's "miraculous" nature, Sacks takes the reader on a case-by-case study detailing the medicine's effects on patients who had been virtually catatonic/comatose for decades. These case studies are startling, weird, disturbing, and in the end frustrating. Most of the patients had horrible side effects after their brief "awakenings", and only a few persisted on L-DOPA with varying degrees of success. Some of Sacks' observations and findings will startle even now in our more "caring" age: Parkinsonian effects can be countered by less clinical care and environments; surrounding the supposedly catatonic with what they love (including and probably most especially family) can have as much of an effect as medication.
Perhaps the big takeaway here from Sacks' post-case study chapters is on how little we still understand about how the individual brain actually works and how treating things as pathologies might be less valuable than understanding the person undergoing them.
Perhaps the big takeaway here from Sacks' post-case study chapters is on how little we still understand about how the individual brain actually works and how treating things as pathologies might be less valuable than understanding the person undergoing them.
September 25, 2019
Seit ich den Film gesehen habe, war mein Wunsch, dieses Buch zu lesen, noch stärker als vorher, alos auf zur Bibliothek!
Der Film ist schon recht schön, aber das Buch hat mich weitaus mehr berührt. Zwar wirken Sacks philosophische Ausflüge in die Gedankenwelt des Menschen, sein Erinnern und sein Wesen, stellenweise etwas lang und umständlich, aber die einzelnen Fallgeschichen sind so gefühlvoll und warm beschrieben, dass ich das Buch kaum aus der Hand legen konnte. Vor allem die Verzweiflung der Kranken, die nach einem kurzen (oder längeren) "Erwachen" wieder in ihre alte Starre zurückfallen und mehr oder weniger anschließend an Verkümmerung und Verzweiflung sterben, sind herzzerreissend. Interessant fand ich auch, dass es einige Patientinnen und Patienten gab, die mit einer konstanten Einnahme von L-Dopa (und teilweise auch anderen Medikamenten) durchaus ein normales Leben führen konnten.
Wunderschön!
Der Film ist schon recht schön, aber das Buch hat mich weitaus mehr berührt. Zwar wirken Sacks philosophische Ausflüge in die Gedankenwelt des Menschen, sein Erinnern und sein Wesen, stellenweise etwas lang und umständlich, aber die einzelnen Fallgeschichen sind so gefühlvoll und warm beschrieben, dass ich das Buch kaum aus der Hand legen konnte. Vor allem die Verzweiflung der Kranken, die nach einem kurzen (oder längeren) "Erwachen" wieder in ihre alte Starre zurückfallen und mehr oder weniger anschließend an Verkümmerung und Verzweiflung sterben, sind herzzerreissend. Interessant fand ich auch, dass es einige Patientinnen und Patienten gab, die mit einer konstanten Einnahme von L-Dopa (und teilweise auch anderen Medikamenten) durchaus ein normales Leben führen konnten.
Wunderschön!
Read
September 9, 2023Irgendwie fehlt dieses Buch hier, obwohl ich es gelesen habe. Ich meine mich sogar an eine Goodreads-Rezension zu erinnern, in der ich die neue E-Book-Ausgabe dafür lobte, dass man aus ihr so viel über die unterschiedlichen Überarbeitungsversionen des Buchs erfährt. Aber unauffindbar. Also: Es ist sehr gut, dass man aus dieser neuen E-Book-Ausgabe so viel über die unterschiedlichen Überarbeitungsversionen dieses Buchs erfährt. Der Rest natürlich auch.
December 19, 2023
Che libro.
Che storie.
Che vite.
Da brividi.
Che storie.
Che vite.
Da brividi.
May 22, 2017
I was excited when my book group selected this book, as I remembered loving the feature film it inspired. However, my enthusiasm was quickly dampened within the first several pages -- not because of the content, but because of the writing style I encountered. The text is so full of medical jargon and clinical explanations (including footnoted expansions of the text which often take up close to or more than half of the printed page) that reading it was WORK, not pleasure. After the introductory material and the first 8 of the patient case histories, I moved on to the supplemental material about how director Penny Marshall and actors Robin Williams and Robert De Niro prepared for the feature film. That part, at least, was readable -- and quite enjoyable, especially as I had just re-watched the movie the night before.
It's evident to me that Dr. Sacks had a far different audience in mind as he was writing this book than the general reading public. If he intended this book to be read by a wider audience than those in the medical sciences, he either missed the mark or was grossly misled by his editor in thinking he had reached it. I found the subject matter fascinating, but obscured by the language he used to report his experiments with using L-Dopa as treatment for post-encephalitis lethargica patients. The book reads like a clinical journal, not a story. And while the book is titled "Awakenings," neither the patients nor Dr. Sacks himself comes to life on the page.
Although the movie is not an exactly accurate portrayal of this amazing event in the history of treating Parkinsonian-like symptoms and victims who had been catatonic for 30 years of more, it is a more human, enlightening treatment of Dr. Sacks's work with these people. I'd suggest seeing the movie first, then reaching for the book as additional reference material if you want to try to learn more about the experiment or the encephalitis-lethargica pandemic of the 1920s.
I had such high hopes for this book. Sadly, they were dashed. Perhaps another writer somewhere can turn this report into a narrative which more of us can appreciate, because the story of what happened is certainly worth telling -- and reading about.
It's evident to me that Dr. Sacks had a far different audience in mind as he was writing this book than the general reading public. If he intended this book to be read by a wider audience than those in the medical sciences, he either missed the mark or was grossly misled by his editor in thinking he had reached it. I found the subject matter fascinating, but obscured by the language he used to report his experiments with using L-Dopa as treatment for post-encephalitis lethargica patients. The book reads like a clinical journal, not a story. And while the book is titled "Awakenings," neither the patients nor Dr. Sacks himself comes to life on the page.
Although the movie is not an exactly accurate portrayal of this amazing event in the history of treating Parkinsonian-like symptoms and victims who had been catatonic for 30 years of more, it is a more human, enlightening treatment of Dr. Sacks's work with these people. I'd suggest seeing the movie first, then reaching for the book as additional reference material if you want to try to learn more about the experiment or the encephalitis-lethargica pandemic of the 1920s.
I had such high hopes for this book. Sadly, they were dashed. Perhaps another writer somewhere can turn this report into a narrative which more of us can appreciate, because the story of what happened is certainly worth telling -- and reading about.
April 1, 2017
I am struggling to find words to describe my feelings of amazement at the case histories set out in this book, and my wonderment at what a strange place the mind can be. For anyone unaware of the background, in the sixties Dr. Sacks worked with survivors of an epidemic of encephalitis lethargica that began in Central Europe in 1916 and lasted for about 10 years, affecting an estimated 5 million people worldwide. In the severest cases, such as Dr. Sacks’ patients, survivors were left in a near catatonic state, behaving with near total apathy and indifference to the world around them. By the 1960s it had been established that the victims of post-encephalitic conditions were lacking the neurotransmitter dopamine, and the drug L-Dopa was developed in an attempt to compensate. Initially the results were startling, with patients who had been profoundly ill for decades suddenly “awakening”, sometimes within hours of receiving L-Dopa. Unfortunately, within a few weeks a large majority of the patients began to manifest new illnesses, the variety and complexity of which are too great for this review. Overall, L-Dopa’s effect on patients ranged from the beneficial to the catastrophic.
The story is told through 20 individual case histories presented by the author, followed by a variety of reflections, postscripts and appendices, where Dr Sacks makes the case against a “mechanistic” approach to medicine, and the tendency to treat patients as replicas of each other (the book was written in 1972, so this argument was probably more radical then than it sounds now). Dr. Sacks is eloquent in drawing conclusions, but at times I found his detailed arguments quite dense, and his writing style a bit too florid for my taste. It’s for this reason that I haven’t given the book a 5-star rating. It deserves that in every other aspect.
In 1990 the book was made into a film starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. The last of the appendices provides a fascinating account of the making of the film. I haven’t seen it, but will look out for it now.
The story is told through 20 individual case histories presented by the author, followed by a variety of reflections, postscripts and appendices, where Dr Sacks makes the case against a “mechanistic” approach to medicine, and the tendency to treat patients as replicas of each other (the book was written in 1972, so this argument was probably more radical then than it sounds now). Dr. Sacks is eloquent in drawing conclusions, but at times I found his detailed arguments quite dense, and his writing style a bit too florid for my taste. It’s for this reason that I haven’t given the book a 5-star rating. It deserves that in every other aspect.
In 1990 the book was made into a film starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. The last of the appendices provides a fascinating account of the making of the film. I haven’t seen it, but will look out for it now.
February 17, 2014
L-DOPA…. Sometimes Hell-DOPA!!
دواء ثوري زي اكتشاف البنسيلين كدا
بيساعد في رفع مستوى الدوبامين في المخ وبيسخدم بشكل رئيسي في علاج مرض باركنسون
الكتاب مش قصة الفيلم الجميل اللي بنفس الإسم http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAz-pr...
لكنه مستوحى من الحالات اللي قصصهم في الكتاب ده , وبطل الفيلم "ليونارد" هو أكتر حاله أثرت في دكتور أوليفر وأتعلم منه كتير
الكتاب مقسوم جزئين تقريباً: أول جزء قصص لعدد من الحالات الأربعين اللي كان مسؤول عنهم دكتور أوليفر من سنة 1966 ...مش مجرد شرح للحالات وتأثير الدواء الجديد عليهم ,لكن القارئ/المستمع يقدر يحس نفسه عايش معاهم وحاسس بيهم
بمجرد ما بدأت أسمع قصة "ليونارد إل" ظهر في دماغي الفيلم على طول وآداء روبيرت دي نيرو :)
الجزء الثاني: تحليل طبي ونفسي (رائع جداً) وإنساني لرحلة سنين مع الـ إل-دوبا
وفي نهاية الكتاب بيتكلم عن تصوير الفيلم المعروف و أفلام تانيه كمان مستوحاه من الكتاب
أكتر حاجه حبيتها في الكتاب الجزء اللي بيتكلم فيه عن مشاعره هوَ (دكتور أوليفر) وهو بيجرب الدواء الجديد على مرضاه
أوقات كتير بسأل نفسي هي الدكاتره وهمَ بيجربوا دواء جديد (علاج مش معروف تأثيره وممكن يدمر إنسان) أو عمليه جديده على البشر بيحسوا بإيه؟؟
للي حابب يتعرف أكتر على مرضEncephalitis lethargica أو إلتهاب الدماغ النوامي
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephal...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNum0d...
و فيديو (مخيف شويه) للحاله http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lNVtU...
وللدكاتره القناة دي على اليوتيوب عليها فيديوهات طبيه تاريخيه
http://www.youtube.com/user/WellcomeFilm
دواء ثوري زي اكتشاف البنسيلين كدا
بيساعد في رفع مستوى الدوبامين في المخ وبيسخدم بشكل رئيسي في علاج مرض باركنسون
الكتاب مش قصة الفيلم الجميل اللي بنفس الإسم http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAz-pr...
لكنه مستوحى من الحالات اللي قصصهم في الكتاب ده , وبطل الفيلم "ليونارد" هو أكتر حاله أثرت في دكتور أوليفر وأتعلم منه كتير
الكتاب مقسوم جزئين تقريباً: أول جزء قصص لعدد من الحالات الأربعين اللي كان مسؤول عنهم دكتور أوليفر من سنة 1966 ...مش مجرد شرح للحالات وتأثير الدواء الجديد عليهم ,لكن القارئ/المستمع يقدر يحس نفسه عايش معاهم وحاسس بيهم
بمجرد ما بدأت أسمع قصة "ليونارد إل" ظهر في دماغي الفيلم على طول وآداء روبيرت دي نيرو :)
الجزء الثاني: تحليل طبي ونفسي (رائع جداً) وإنساني لرحلة سنين مع الـ إل-دوبا
وفي نهاية الكتاب بيتكلم عن تصوير الفيلم المعروف و أفلام تانيه كمان مستوحاه من الكتاب
أكتر حاجه حبيتها في الكتاب الجزء اللي بيتكلم فيه عن مشاعره هوَ (دكتور أوليفر) وهو بيجرب الدواء الجديد على مرضاه
أوقات كتير بسأل نفسي هي الدكاتره وهمَ بيجربوا دواء جديد (علاج مش معروف تأثيره وممكن يدمر إنسان) أو عمليه جديده على البشر بيحسوا بإيه؟؟
للي حابب يتعرف أكتر على مرضEncephalitis lethargica أو إلتهاب الدماغ النوامي
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephal...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNum0d...
و فيديو (مخيف شويه) للحاله http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lNVtU...
وللدكاتره القناة دي على اليوتيوب عليها فيديوهات طبيه تاريخيه
http://www.youtube.com/user/WellcomeFilm
March 16, 2012
This is a true story about people who became prisoners of their own brains, their own brain chemistry. Just after World War I an epidemic of sleeping sickness froze these patients in a trance-like state. Long thought to be untreatable, they were suddenly brought back to life in 1969 when Dr. Oliver Sacks gave them the drug L-DOPA. They woke to a world that had changed utterly in the intervening years. Some of them were able to adjust, some could not deal with the changes in the world and in themselves and lapsed back into their frozen state.
But this isn't just a sad story. There's also something numinous about this book. It's far more profound and amazing than the movie that it's based upon it. That was a good movie, but the Robert DeNiro character--as is a necessity when condensing a book for film--is really a composite of many people. What makes the book so much deeper and richer are the many stories of the patients Oliver Sacks deals with, how their spirits soared, or didn't, what it means to be a human being. Their struggles to come out of the horrific consequences of their disease into a new life are a testament to the human spirit, both positive and negative. Sacks' writing is as profound as the story he tells.
But this isn't just a sad story. There's also something numinous about this book. It's far more profound and amazing than the movie that it's based upon it. That was a good movie, but the Robert DeNiro character--as is a necessity when condensing a book for film--is really a composite of many people. What makes the book so much deeper and richer are the many stories of the patients Oliver Sacks deals with, how their spirits soared, or didn't, what it means to be a human being. Their struggles to come out of the horrific consequences of their disease into a new life are a testament to the human spirit, both positive and negative. Sacks' writing is as profound as the story he tells.
February 2, 2015
My husband bought this book and he has great taste in books. I decided to read this for the challenge. I’ve noticed there are a lot of books out now about disease. Its like the new fad. I have a condition called papilledma. Its not deadly, which I am blessed by GOD for that. I don’t like reading about people suffering because I know how it feels. I have watched enough people be sick and I don’t want to read about it. That’s my personal choice. But this book was very insightful.
I am very blessed to have a husband that God blessed me with to support me. I love you Jacob
My Review:
Awakenings is a very moving tale. It is Sacks’s opus about the encephalitis lethargica virus. Very dramatic and full of heart, we suffer with Sacks as he suffers with his patients as they experience an awakening from their catatonic trances after he gives them L-DOPA. We then watch the journey for those who can adjust and those who cannot. A very touching book of not just medicine and science, but of hope and compassion.
I am very blessed to have a husband that God blessed me with to support me. I love you Jacob
My Review:
Awakenings is a very moving tale. It is Sacks’s opus about the encephalitis lethargica virus. Very dramatic and full of heart, we suffer with Sacks as he suffers with his patients as they experience an awakening from their catatonic trances after he gives them L-DOPA. We then watch the journey for those who can adjust and those who cannot. A very touching book of not just medicine and science, but of hope and compassion.
November 30, 2018
Una descrizione di sicuro fascino dei risvegli di alcuni pazienti encefalitici in seguito alla somministrazione di un nuovo farmaco, nel 1969. Accurato sotto ogni aspetto.
Interessante dal punto di vista delle biografie; forse un po' noiosa la parte più prettamente tecnica, non di per sé, ma perché piena di termini scientifici e soprattutto per le note, che rendono la lettura un po' frammentata. Comunque un libro interessante sulla filosofia della medicina, che descrive il conflitto tra tecnica e scienza romantica (ovvero quella che vede il paziente come persona e non come numero).
Vedrò il film con De Niro e il compianto Robin Williams, l' autore lo ha giudicato positivamente, anche se liberamente adattato.
Interessante dal punto di vista delle biografie; forse un po' noiosa la parte più prettamente tecnica, non di per sé, ma perché piena di termini scientifici e soprattutto per le note, che rendono la lettura un po' frammentata. Comunque un libro interessante sulla filosofia della medicina, che descrive il conflitto tra tecnica e scienza romantica (ovvero quella che vede il paziente come persona e non come numero).
Vedrò il film con De Niro e il compianto Robin Williams, l' autore lo ha giudicato positivamente, anche se liberamente adattato.
July 25, 2008
This is the astonishing true story of a group of people aflicted with a severe 'sleeping' sickness who were awakened for a while by a drug called L Dopa. It is full of personal moments of extreem grief and happiness and wonder. It is a story of clinical experimentation and individual care and understanding.
A very good film of it has also been made with Robin Williams as Oliver Sacks. I think, as usual, the book is better than the film, but the film gives a good feel for the story line if not actually much of the detail.
A very good film of it has also been made with Robin Williams as Oliver Sacks. I think, as usual, the book is better than the film, but the film gives a good feel for the story line if not actually much of the detail.
February 7, 2022
It is a very fascinating and deeply saddening story at the same time. It’s about a group of patients who re-awakened after years of death-like state (caused by post encephalitis or sleeping sickness) in 1969.
It made me think about what it means to be alive and a free thinking individual. How life on this earth is so very fleeting. How we waste it most of the time.
It made me think about what it means to be alive and a free thinking individual. How life on this earth is so very fleeting. How we waste it most of the time.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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