The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat!

‘The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat’ 

is a case study of a teacher in the School of Music. He is named as Dr. P in this book. He failed to see faces and even worse he saw faces when there were no faces to see. No one ever thought that it was a serious impairment until he is diagnosed with diabetes and being referred to a ophthalmologist (as diabetes correlates highly with visibility). 

    It was then his ophthalmologist referred him to Dr. Sacks’ clinic. Dr. Sack’s first impression on Dr. P was that he is absolutely normal. He has no dementia, good sense of humor and imagination.        However, series of bizarreness were being discovered as he make futher tests. The first thing that struck Dr. Sacks was when Dr. P faces his ear towards Dr. Sacks while talking to him, with his eyes looking at Dr. Sacks’s features; his chin, nose, right ear. Secondly, was when Dr. P couldn’t distinguish his foot with his shoe. Later, Dr. P showed him the picture of Sahara dunes and asked him to describe the picture. He specifically said that he saw a river, little guesthouse with its terrace on the water. 

   He also said that he saw some colored parasols. The agenda just gets more interesting when he reached out his hand and took his wife’s head, trying to lift it off and put it on, thinking that it was his hat. A further checkup on Dr.P was done at his own home. He recognized Platonic solids and cartoon characters with no difficulties. However, when pictures of his families were shown to him, he did not recognize most of them. He only identifies those with ‘obvious markers’, for example, a person with a square jaw and big teeth. He was told then to describe a rose. He described it as being 6 inches in length, convoluted red form and linear green attachment. Dr. P could speak about things but failed to see them face-to-face. 

  He was said to be like a computer, recognize things by means of their key features and schematic. His imagination was also found to be on the right side of him only. He was thought to have internal agnosia as well, as he is lacked sensorial, imaginal and emotional reality. 

  Dr. P was later diagnosed with a massive tumor or degenerative process in the visual part of his brain. Hence, it can be concluded that not just classifying and categorizing is important in our life, but also continuous judging and feeling. If this is missing, then we will be like a computer just like Dr. P.