Anecdote: Writing about "Cold Storage"

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Being friends with Eric Korn 'before memory'

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Anecdote: Writing about Cold Storage

Oliver Sacks Scientist

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I’ll tell you another story. In 1988, for some reason the image of a particular patient I’d seen as a medical student recurred to me. It has also recurred to me very strongly when I was writing Awakenings, and seeing those patients; but... but in '88 it occurred... it recurred to me very strongly, and I wrote up this man’s story, which I called Cold Storage. When I told Eric [Korn], my oldest friend, that I’d just written up this man’s story, he said, 'What do you mean, you’ve just written it up?' He said, 'You wrote it up in '58 – I saw it'. And I said, 'No, I didn’t’, I said, ‘I may have told you a story in '58, but I didn’t write it'. But I suspect that I may have told it, that what I may... I suspect that my telling it in '58 and my writing it in '88 may have been much the same, and may have used some of the same phrases.

Oliver Sacks (1933-2015) was born in England. Having obtained his medical degree at Oxford University, he moved to the USA. There he worked as a consultant neurologist at Beth Abraham Hospital where in 1966, he encountered a group of survivors of the global sleepy sickness of 1916-1927. Sacks treated these patients with the then-experimental drug L-Dopa producing astounding results which he described in his book Awakenings. Further cases of neurological disorders were described by Sacks with exceptional sympathy in another major book entitled The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat which became an instant best seller on its publication in 1985. His other books drew on his rich experiences as a neurologist gleaned over almost five decades of professional practice. Sacks's work was recognized by prestigious institutions which awarded him numerous honours and prizes. These included the Lewis Thomas Prize given by Rockefeller University, which recognizes the scientist as poet. He was an honorary fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and held honorary degrees from many universities, including Oxford, the Karolinska Institute, Georgetown, Bard, Gallaudet, Tufts, and the Catholic University of Peru.

Title: Anecdote: Writing about "Cold Storage"

Listeners: Kate Edgar

Kate Edgar, previously Managing Editor at the Summit Books division of Simon and Schuster, began working with Oliver Sacks in 1983. She has served as editor and researcher on all of his books, and has been closely involved with various films and adaptations based on his work. As friend, assistant, and collaborator, she has accompanied Dr Sacks on many adventures around the world, clinical and otherwise.

Tags: Cold Storage, Awakenings, Eric Korn

Duration: 1 minute, 11 seconds

Date story recorded: 19-23 September, 2011

Date story went live: 02 October 2012