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Views | Duration | ||
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191. Supplying clinical data to the great theorists | 283 | 00:58 | |
192. My interest in the deaf and Martha's Vineyard | 467 | 03:21 | |
193. The subculture of people who are deaf | 311 | 03:33 | |
194. What happens to the brains of deaf people? | 529 | 03:42 | |
195. Kate Edgar | 1 | 320 | 02:15 |
196. 'The longest running psychoanalysis on record' | 6104 | 04:43 | |
197. Being approached by Bob Silvers | 331 | 02:25 | |
198. The written style of Witty Ticcy Ray | 294 | 01:00 | |
199. My time at the Blue Mountain Center for writers | 280 | 03:07 | |
200. Norman Geschwind and Orrin Devinsky | 422 | 02:31 |
I realised I couldn’t write about the other patient with Tourette’s, but in 1980 I did write about Witty Ticcy Ray. The form of writing, or the way in which it happened was interesting, because this originally took the form of a letter to a colleague. And this letter to a colleague then became the piece, but for me, the idea of a letter, the idea of epistolary form is very central, and I would regard an article or a book as a letter for anybody who is... who's interested. The London Review of Books published Witty Ticcy Ray in 1981, and they also published some other pieces, they published the original version of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and some other pieces of mine.
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: The written style of "Witty Ticcy Ray"
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: The London Review of Books, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Witty Ticcy Ray, Witty Ticcy Ray
Duration: 1 minute
Date story recorded: September 2011
Date story went live: 02 October 2012