Intro: Psychic Seizures and The Memory Artist
In context with Oliver Sacks’ case study within An Anthropologist on Mars, Franco Magnani provides insight into how mental instabilities affect identity, human relationships, and memory.
Oliver Sacks, MD, FRCP, was born into a family of doctors, and later on for him to become one as well as he practiced neurology. Throughout his life, Dr. Sacks traveled the world exploring cases and meeting new patients. He also taught neurology at NYU and the Columbia University Medical Center. Sacks had a particular knack for specialized cases as seen in An Anthropologist on Mars, whether it be Alzheimer's, Tourettes, phantom limb syndrome, or temporal lobe epilepsy.
Within this chapter, there will be a keen focus on the case of Franco Magnani, a man who is sometimes referred to as the “Memory Artist”, but also a man who is believed to be suffering from temporal lobe epilepsy.