NEXT STORY
Jonathan Miller's dealings with Alzheimer's disease
RELATED STORIES
Video URL
Haunting public libraries
Oliver Sacks
Scientist
|
Views | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 51. The cuttlefish story | 537 | 03:15 | |
| 52. Anti-Semitism in London and in school | 459 | 01:21 | |
| 53. Limiting the number of Jewish pupils in St Paul’s School | 514 | 00:58 | |
| 54. Anti-Semitism in mine and my parent's worlds | 466 | 01:16 | |
| 55. My excommunicated uncle | 464 | 02:13 | |
| 56. The types of books we had in the house | 447 | 02:07 | |
| 57. 'I hope the Alzheimer’s statistics are wrong' | 517 | 00:25 | |
| 58. Jonathan Miller's literacy and intellect | 547 | 01:58 | |
| 59. Haunting public libraries | 410 | 01:12 | |
| 60. Jonathan Miller's dealings with Alzheimer's disease | 610 | 00:55 |
-
- 1
- ...
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- ...
- 36
-
Comments
(0)
Please sign in or
register to add comments
I don’t think either of Eric’s parents were... were particularly bookish, but we all went to public libraries. I loved the public library in Willesden, a triangular building. There weren’t that many science books at home; I found science books in the public library, and I feel much of my own education was not at school but... but in the public library. Eric also haunted public libraries, and he was the most precocious of the three of us, and I think by the age of 14 by far the most widely read, and aided by this incredible memory. I don’t know whether I should say this, but this becomes painful to recollect now that Eric of all people, with that dazzling brain, himself has Alzheimer’s or something like this, maybe Lewy body disease.
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: Haunting public libraries
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: Eric Korn
Duration: 1 minute, 12 seconds
Date story recorded: September 2011
Date story went live: 02 October 2012
