An anthropologist on Mars

Historical Significance: Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE (born 9 July 1933), is a British-American neurologist, psychologist, writer, and amateur chemist who is Professor of Neurology at New York University School of Medicine. Between 2007 and 2012, he was professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University, where he also held the position of "Columbia Artist". Before that, he spent many years on the clinical faculty of Yeshiva University's Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He also holds the position of visiting professor at the United Kingdom's University of Warwick. Sacks is the author of numerous best-selling books, including several collections of case studies of people with neurological disorders. An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales reports seven medical case histories of individuals with neurological conditions such as autism and Tourette syndrome. It follows up on many of the themes Sacks explored in his earlier book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, but here the essays are significantly longer and Sacks has more of an opportunity to discuss each subject with more depth and to explore historical case studies of patients with similar symptoms. In addition, Sacks studies his patients outside the hospital, often traveling considerable distances to interact with his subjects in their own environments. Sacks concludes that "defects, disorders, [and] diseases... can play a paradoxical role, by bringing out latent powers, developments, evolutions, forms of life that might never be seen, or even be imaginable, in their absence" (p. xvi). Sacks also wrote 'The Island of the Colorblind' bout achromatopsia on the Micronesian atoll of Pingelap. The second half of the book is devoted to the mystery of Lytico-Bodig disease in Guam.