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The neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote about a music teacher he called Dr P, whose eyes worked well but who could not recognise faces or everyday objects by sight. Leaving an appointment, Dr P reached for his hat and took hold of his wife's head instead. The scene gave Sacks's 1985 book its title.

Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

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The book is The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, a collection of Sacks's case histories. He used Dr P to explain visual agnosia, a rare condition in which the eyes work normally but the brain cannot link what is seen to what it is. Handed a rose, Dr P described its red, folded shape and green stem in careful detail without realising it was a flower, until he smelled it. Sacks suspected a tumour or a degenerative disease in the visual areas at the back of the brain, which connect sight to memory; the cause was never confirmed. Dr P kept teaching music to the end of his life. He got through daily routines such as dressing and eating by singing his way through them: music still made sense to him when what he saw did not.

Türkçe oku
Nörolog Oliver Sacks, Dr P. adını verdiği bir müzik öğretmenini anlatır: gözleri sağlamdı, ama yüzleri ve gündelik eşyaları görerek tanıyamıyordu. Bir muayeneden çıkarken şapkasını alacağını sanıp karısının başını tuttu. Sacks'ın 1985 tarihli Karısını Şapka Sanan Adam kitabı adını bu andan alır.

Kitap, Sacks'ın hasta öykülerini topladığı Karısını Şapka Sanan Adam'dır. Sacks, Dr P. üzerinden görsel agnoziyi anlatır: gözler normal çalışır, ama beyin gördüğü şeyi ne olduğuyla eşleştiremez. Eline bir gül verildiğinde Dr P. onun kıvrımlı kırmızı biçimini ve yeşil sapını ayrıntılarıyla tarif etti, ama koklayana kadar bir çiçek olduğunu anlamadı. Sacks, görmeyi bellekle buluşturan ve beynin arka kısmında yer alan görme alanlarında bir tümör ya da ilerleyici bir hastalık olduğundan şüpheleniyordu; neden hiçbir zaman kesinleşmedi. Dr P. hayatının sonuna dek müzik öğretmenliğini sürdürdü. Giyinmek, yemek yemek gibi gündelik işleri şarkı söyleyerek yapabiliyordu: gördükleri ona bir şey ifade etmese de müzik hâlâ anlamlıydı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
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