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. ” “One of the most beautifully composed and moving works of our time" (The Washington Post. ) from the distinguished neurologist and the national bestselling author of. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. 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.