Description

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From the renowned neurologist and bestselling author of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat comes a fascinating investigation of the many manifestations of migraine, including the visual hallucinations and distortions of space, time, and body image which migraineurs can experience.

“So erudite, so gracefully written, that even those people fortunate enough never to have had a migraine in their lives should find it equally compelling.” —The New York Times

The many manifestations of migraine can vary dramatically from one patient to another, even within the same patient at different times. Among the most compelling and perplexing of these symptoms are the strange visual hallucinations and distortions of space, time, and body image which migraineurs sometimes experience. Portrayals of these uncanny states have found their way into many works of art, from the heavenly visions of Hildegard von Bingen to Alice in Wonderland. Dr. Oliver Sacks argues that migraine cannot be understood simply as an illness, but must be viewed as a complex condition with a unique role to play in each individual's life.

About the Author

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OLIVER SACKS was a neurologist, writer, and professor of medicine. Born in London in 1933, he moved to New York City in 1965, where he launched his medical career and began writing case studies of his patients. Called the “poet laureate of medicine” by The New York Times, Sacks is the author of thirteen books, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Musicophilia, and Awakenings, which inspired an Oscar-nominated film and a play by Harold Pinter. He was the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees, and was made a Commander of the British Empire in 2008 for services to medicine. He died in 2015.

Praise For…

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"Balanced, authoritative ... brilliant." —The London Times

"Written by one of the great clinical writers of the twentieth century, Migraine ... should be read as much for its brilliant insights into the nature of our mental functioning as for its discussion of the migraine." —The New York Times Book Review

"I am sure ... that any layman who is interested in the relation between the body and mind . . . will find the book as fascinating as I have." —W. H. Auden, The New York Review of Books