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Reasons for agreeing to Awakenings documentary
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Reasons for agreeing to Awakenings documentary
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Views | Duration | ||
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131. Writing, dictating, the last of the Awakenings case... | 292 | 02:37 | |
132. The death of my mother | 386 | 03:08 | |
133. Additions to Awakenings | 258 | 03:04 | |
134. Awakenings proof and WH Auden's compulsions | 273 | 02:37 | |
135. Awakenings: not a murmur from the medical press | 244 | 03:05 | |
136. The dangers of publishing | 266 | 00:32 | |
137. 'Is this your medical discretion?' | 248 | 01:45 | |
138. How the patients of Awakenings felt | 443 | 02:14 | |
139. The only changes to Awakenings for the disgruntled... | 277 | 00:18 | |
140. Approached by Duncan Dallas of Yorkshire TV | 372 | 01:15 |
In... October of '73, I was approached by Duncan Dallas of Yorkshire Television and... who wondered whether... how I would feel – and how the patients might feel – about a documentary being made, and said he would like to come over and meet the patients. And he came over for 10 days and met many of the patients who warmed to him. And I warmed to him not just as a potential film-maker, but I was delighted to learn that he had written a doctoral thesis on [Antoine] Lavoisier and that he was in fact a chemist manqué, and had a laboratory of his own. So when we weren’t talking about Awakenings we were talking about chemistry and the history of chemistry.
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: Approached by Duncan Dallas of Yorkshire TV
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: Yorkshire Television, Awakenings, Duncan Dallas, Antoine Lavoisier
Duration: 1 minute, 15 seconds
Date story recorded: September 2011
Date story went live: 02 October 2012