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Not quite a full recovery from my leg injury
Oliver Sacks
Scientist
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Views | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 151. The memories and moods I had whilst rescuing myself | 303 | 02:12 | |
| 152. A Leg to Stand On | 454 | 01:37 | |
| 153. Not quite a full recovery from my leg injury | 315 | 01:23 | |
| 154. Why it took me nine years to write A Leg to Stand On | 281 | 01:36 | |
| 155. The death of medical case histories | 287 | 01:28 | |
| 156. I thought Alexander Luria had done it all | 537 | 01:36 | |
| 157. The influence of Alexander Luria upon Awakenings | 1 | 502 | 01:20 |
| 158. Richard Gregory's review and receiving letters from Luria | 1 | 275 | 02:18 |
| 159. Luria's conciseness | 314 | 01:31 | |
| 160. A Leg to Stand On: release and reviews | 345 | 02:42 |
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Incidentally, something which isn’t in the book because it’s... it occurred after the ending, the book only really covers a nine-week period of the accident, and being in the hospital, and... and convalescence, and what I thought was complete recovery. When I got back to New York, on one occasion I had a very, very, long swim, and when I came to... although something peculiar was happening to my kicking... and when I came to get out of the pool, the quadriceps had lost all its tone, and I couldn’t use that leg and I somehow had to pull myself out of the pool and get someone to help me. And... on another occasion I smoked some pot, not a large amount, and also then the quadriceps lost its... its tone, so I think I probably hadn’t got full functional innervation for a couple of years or something. I would also have strange illusions. I would feel that the... the leg had suddenly moved when it hadn’t. I think, there was a... probably a bit of neuroma formation and crosstalk between sensory and motor nerves.
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: Not quite a full recovery from my leg injury
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: A Leg to Stand On
Duration: 1 minute, 23 seconds
Date story recorded: September 2011
Date story went live: 02 October 2012
