The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

In the first two parts, Sacks explores patients with losses or excesses of functionality. In Part 3, Sacks recounts the stories of patients with unusual presentations of memories, or “transports.” These are “poetic” disorders that involve highly personal and sensory perceptions. Therefore, patients need the language of poetry and painting rather than that of neuroscience alone.

Mrs. O’C. is 90 years old and partially deaf. One night, the sounds of Irish songs awaken her. She checks to see if her radio is playing, but it is not. She thinks that she must be picking up a radio station in one of her fillings and goes back to sleep. However, in the morning, she still hears the Irish music, the kind she sang and danced to as a child. Until the age of five, she lived in a small town in Ireland. Mrs. O’C. goes to see an ENT (ear, nose, and throat) doctor who tells her there is nothing physically wrong with her ears. The doctor recommends that she see a neurologist, so Mrs. O’C. goes to Sacks.

Sacks discloses that Mrs. O’C. was removed from Ireland as a child and taken to live with relatives in America. She has longed for her past, for her connection with her forgotten home and deceased family.