The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: "A Passage to India"

by Oliver Sacks
In this classic collection of "clinical tales," neurologist Oliver Sacks explores a range of neurological conditions and phenomena.

Here are links to our lists for the collection: Part One Introduction; The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat; The Lost Mariner; The Disembodied Lady; The Man Who Fell out of Bed; Hands; Phantoms; On the Level; Eyes Right!; The President's Speech; Part Two Introduction; Witty Ticcy Ray; Cupid's Disease; A Matter of Identity; Yes, Father-Sister; The Possessed; Part Three Introduction; Reminiscence; Incontinent Nostalgia; A Passage to India; The Dog Beneath the Skin; Murder; The Visions of Hildegard; Part Four Introduction; Rebecca; A Walking Grove; The Twins; The Autist Artist
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. hospice
    a program of medical care for the terminally ill
    Bhagawhandi P., an Indian girl of 19 with a malignant brain tumour, was admitted to our hospice in 1978.
  2. circumscribe
    restrict or confine
    The tumour—an astrocytoma—had first presented when she was seven, but was then of low malignancy, and well circumscribed, allowing a complete resection, and complete return of function, and allowing Bhagawhandi to return to normal life.
  3. reprieve
    a relief from harm or discomfort
    This reprieve lasted for ten years, during which she lived life to the full, lived it gratefully and consciously to the full, for she knew (she was a bright girl) that she had a 'time bomb' in her head.
  4. invasive
    marked by a tendency to spread into healthy tissue
    In her eighteenth year, the tumour recurred, much more invasive and malignant now, and no longer removable.
  5. cerebral
    of or relating to the brain
    As the tumour inched forward to her temporal lobe and the decompression started to bulge (we put her on steroids to reduce cerebral edema) her seizures became more frequent—and stranger.
  6. convulsion
    a violent uncontrollable contraction of muscles
    The original seizures were grand mal convulsions, and these she continued to have on occasion.
  7. ascertain
    learn or determine by making an inquiry or other effort
    She would not lose consciousness, but she would look (and feel) 'dreamy'; and it was easy to ascertain (and confirm by EEG) that she was now having frequent temporal-lobe seizures, which, as Hughlings Jackson taught, are often characterised by ‘dreamy states’ and involuntary ‘reminiscence’.
  8. reminiscence
    the process of remembering
    She would not lose consciousness, but she would look (and feel) 'dreamy'; and it was easy to ascertain (and confirm by EEG) that she was now having frequent temporal-lobe seizures, which, as Hughlings Jackson taught, are often characterised by ‘dreamy states’ and involuntary ‘reminiscence’.
  9. paddy
    an irrigated or flooded field where rice is grown
    At times there were people, usually her family or neighbours from her home village; sometimes there was speech, or singing, or dancing; once she was in church, once in a graveyard; but mostly there were the plains, the fields, the rice paddies near her village, and the low, sweet hills which swept up to the horizon.
  10. reiterate
    say, state, or perform again
    This first seemed the case, but now we were less sure; for temporal-lobe seizures (as Hughlings Jackson emphasised, and Wilder Penfield was able by stimulation of the exposed brain to confirm) tend to have a rather fixed format: a single scene or song, unvaryingly reiterated, going with an equally fixed focus in the cortex.
  11. panorama
    a picture representing a continuous scene
    Whereas Bhagawhandi’s dreams had no such fixity, but presented ever-changing panoramas and dissolving landscapes to her eye.
  12. lucid
    capable of thinking in a clear and consistent manner
    And a ‘steroid psychosis’, so-called, is often excited and disorganised, whereas Bhagawhandi was always lucid, peaceful and calm.
  13. schizophrenia
    a psychotic disorder characterized by distortions of reality
    Could they be, in the Freudian sense, phantasies or dreams? Or the sort of dream-madness (oneirophrenia) which may sometimes occur in schizophrenia?
  14. phantasmagoria
    a constantly changing medley of real or imagined images
    Here again we could not be certain; for though there was a phantasmagoria of sorts, yet the phantasms were clearly all memories.
  15. rapt
    feeling great delight and interest
    We would see her rapt, as if in a trance, her eyes sometimes closed, sometimes open but unseeing, and always a faint, mysterious smile on her face.
Created on Wed Sep 02 13:48:08 EDT 2020 (updated Wed Oct 28 10:58:11 EDT 2020)

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