ADDENDA


Book review: On the move


By Oliver Sacks Picador, £20.00 hardback Review by Dr Greg Dollman, medical adviser, MDDUS


OLIVER Sacks’ memoir, On the move, recalls his “lucky” life as an adventure and a journey of discovery. The professor of neurology and author of numerous international bestsellers, including Awakenings and The man who mistook his wife for a hat, chose and explored intently the road less travelled. He died shortly after publication of this book at age 82. Sacks seemed to push all the boundaries and break all the


stereotypes. He was a bundle of contradictions. The photograph on the dust jacket of this autobiography pricks the intrigue: posing on his BMW R60 motorcycle in leather jacket, he could


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be James Dean or Marlon Brando. Sacks rode alongside the Hell’s Angels, was a record-breaking weightlifter and a hardened user of street drugs. He was also an exceptional piano player, a fan of Star Trek and enamoured with ferns. He was notoriously clumsy: nicknamed Inky as a boy owing to his messiness, he lost several manuscripts, dropped food crumbs onto histopathology slides, and had innumerable personal accidents. Nevertheless, he was a meticulous recorder of detail, his personal journals were voluminous. Those who have read Sacks before will appreciate his gift for


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unravelling the interplay of life and medicine. No doubt this stemmed in part from his personal experiences. He tells of growing up in a family of doctors, the bond with his brother diagnosed with schizophrenia, his own ocular melanoma and even facial blindness (which he so eloquently described in others in his case studies). Critics of Sacks argue that he acted irresponsibly when writing about patients. They believe that his works were anecdotal, rather than supported by the rigour of scientific research, and that he abused his position of trust by putting his clinical notes into print. Sacks recognised the power of the case report; his use of this traditional record of medical uncertainty arguably gave impetus to the subsequent research into the conditions he described. He explains that most of his patients encouraged him to write about their conditions, and he carefully documented consent and sought ethics approval for his studies. In On the move, Sacks describes his “excesses”, and wonders


how he lived past age 35. Was his risky behaviour, and his relentless weightlifting, an attempt to compensate for the “timid, diffident, insecure, submissive” person he considered himself to be? Was it his drug-fuelled experiences that gave him a glimpse into the seemingly-indecipherable minds he investigated? Did his patients recognise Sacks’ inner demons, so strengthening the bond they shared? His memoir poses many questions with not all of them answered. He explains that the purpose of his written case studies was not to provide a diagnosis, rather to illuminate that which befitted description. What is certain is that Sacks’ own life story is as eloquently written as any of his case studies.


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ACROSS 1 50-50 (4-3-4) 7 Famous Frances ______ in 20 Down (6)


8 Other half (6) 10 Graph of heart activity (10) 13 System based on the metre as unit of length (6)


14 Type of dagger (6) 16 Plaintiff in recent landmark medical consent case (10)


19 Eats hurriedly (5) 21 Artificial opiate (6) 22 Ostentation (11)


DOWN 1 Out-and-out nonsense (5) 2 Soothe (4) 3 Meeting the mean (9) 4 Snake (3) 5 Toothpaste additive (8) 6 Pertaining to heat (7) 9 Deficit disorder (Abbr.) (3) 11 Description of the ear (9) 12 Impasse (8) 13 Imitation, Greek orig. (7) 15 Flightless bird (3) 17 Avoid car (5) 18 Localised thickening of skin due to pressure (4)


20 US regulatory body (Abbr.) (3)


Object obscura: Radioactive soda water


See answers online at: http://www.mddus.com/news/notice-board/


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THIS box contains vials of an early 20th century preparation of radium, designed to be used with a siphon to prepare radioactive soda water. Radiation was once considered the ultimate health cure before being recognised as highly toxic and carcinogenic. The directions for use say: “One tumblerful to be taken twice daily after the principal meals.” Source: Science Photo Library


SUMMONS


PHOTOGRAPH: SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY


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