Awakenings (Masterplots II: Nonfiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Oliver Sacks
- First Published: 1973
- Type of Work: Science/psychology
- Principal Characters: Oliver Sacks, Rose R., Miriam H., Leonard L.
- Genres: Nonfiction, Science and technology, Psychology
- Subjects: Doctors, Mental illness, Drugs, Medicine, Health, Life and death, Diseases, Hospitals, Old age or elderly people
Form and Content
In 1973, Oliver Sacks published the first edition of Awakenings, a brilliant account of his work with a group of elderly patients who had contracted sleeping sickness (encephalitis lethargica) in the great epidemic after World War I and had later developed symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Sacks presents twenty case histories, in which he describes the remarkable “awakenings” these patients experienced when, beginning in the spring of 1969, the new drug laevo-dihydroxyphenylaline (L-Dopa) was administered to them. Many of these patients had been...
[The entire page is 2803 words long]
