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The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: Book Analysis

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Neurologist Oliver Sacks was a best-selling author of numerous books concerning the field of medicine. Sacks his most known for his publication of neurological case histories, his writing has inspired films consisting of the Awakenings (1990) and At First Sight (1999), and The Music Never Stopped (2015). As an author, he received considerable notoriety from those in his field and the public. His writing has influenced other authors and individuals such as Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN chief of medical correspondent, who credits him as the person who inspired his love of the brain (website) and Lisa Genova, neurologist and author, crediting Sacks as an influence on her.
One of the many books written by Sacks is The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat published in 1985. It is a collection of case histories of his patients afflicted by the oddities of the neurological world. Sacks as an literary author feel as though conveying the human aspect is a necessary component. Striving to make an empathetic connection between the patient and reader by giving background knowledge on the patient.
The rhetorical situation Sacks addresses in this book to respond to was his disagreement of how case histories were conducted at the time of publican. His exigence was a response (Bitzer 48) to the mainstream consensus of the impersonal approach that he felt was causing an unrealistic disconnect between the disease and the individual suffering from such illness. The lack of empathy expressed in the

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