It recounts the life histories of those who had been victims of the 1920s encephalitis lethargica epidemic.

[2] The treatment used the new drug L-DOPA, with the observed effects on the patients' symptoms being generally dramatic but temporary.

Such patients have undergone an enduring awakening, and enjoy possibilities of life which had been impossible, unthinkable, before the coming of L-DOPA.

[3]The 1976 edition of the book is dedicated to the memory of Sacks's close friend the poet W. H. Auden, and bears an extract from Auden's 1969 poem The Art of Healing: 'Healing', Papa would tell me, 'is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing Nature.'

Prior to his death in 1973, Auden wrote, "Have read the book and think it a masterpiece".