Awakenings

The classic account of survivors of the sleeping-sickness during the great epidemic just after World War I — and their return to the world after decades of “sleep.” •  From the distinguished neurologist and the bestselling author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat “One of the most beautifully composed and moving works of our time.”” — The Washington Post Awakenings— which inspired the major motion picture starring Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams—is the remarkable story of a group of patients who contracted sleeping-sickness during the great epidemic just after World War I. Frozen for decades in a trance-like state, these men and women were given up as hopeless until 1969, when Dr. Oliver Sacks gave them the then-new drug L-DOPA, which had an astonishing, explosive, “”awakening”” effect. Dr. Sacks recounts the moving case histories of his patients, their lives, and the extraordinary transformations which went with their reintroduction to a changed world. — ASIN: 0375704051 | ISBN13: 9780375704055 | ISBN-13: 978-0375704055