Letters, p.64
Letters, page 64
I was intrigued by your review (with Trygg Engen) of Odor Memory—especially those parts dealing with its apparent sparing (or relative sparing) in patients with Korsakov’s syndrome. I have also had this impression, though have made no systematic studies—and I refer to it briefly in another one of the Anthropologist subjects, Greg—xerox enclosed.
I wish I could write more, but my mind is on a very different subject at the moment—namely boyhood (my own), and an early passion—chemistry. This, for me, is an intensely sensuous no less than an intellectual passion: I cannot see lilacs in May without being reminded of the color of bivalent vanadium, nor (I am sure) will I ever forget the smell of hydrogen selenide. I have only smelt it once in my life—when I made some, more than fifty years ago, and stunk out our London house—but (I suspect) the memory is ineradicable (even if I can’t voluntarily evoke it). Though when I smell rotten radishes (not too often!) it brings back the realm, the general category, the “environs,” so to speak, of H₂Se. A great deal of chemical expertise—and clinical expertise, for that matter—is (one suspects) dependent on these very accurate, very complex, and almost indelible memories of smell. Though I can’t voluntarily evoke smells (as I can visual scenes, lines of poetry, tunes etc), there are often involuntary evocations or associations of smell. Thus when I recently visited our old house in London (which has been in others’ hands, and completely redone, since my father’s death in 1990), going into what used to be the dining-room immediately set me sniffing and smelling the odour of “Alicante” wine—the Sabbath wines used to be kept in the old sideboard there. Whether any trace of their scent could still have been lingering, or have impregnated the walls and floor, or whether it was a sort of hallucination, I don’t know. It was similar when I went into the room which used to be my parents’ “surgery”—I instantly seemed to smell iodoform, methylated spirit, “trilene” (a chloroform-like anesthetic which my mother kept in her obstetric bag), and other smells, a whole tapestry or symphony of them—either lingering there, or as quasi-hallucinatory associations. And the emotional power of these was quite overwhelming—I felt a child again, and the past as present, and then wept to think I was old and the past gone.
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I was recently at U. Cincinnati, where my host was Steven Kleene. He too was kind enough to send me a bunch of reprints, assembled by Heather Duncan, the director of their Taste and Smell Center. I imagine you are in close touch with them. No-one used to pay much attention to olfaction once—and now it seems to be a “hot” subject, as it should be.
Again, many thanks for your letter and reprints—we must stay in communication.
Yours sincerely,
Oliver Sacks
To Susan Sontag
February 14, 1999
2 Horatio St., New York
Dear Susan,
I know (a little) about what a harrowing time you have been having,[*36] and was not sure whether (or how) to write.
Wendy (Lesser) tells me you are feeling somewhat better now—and I wonder if you are up to a visit (but I don’t want to intrude at a painful and private time).
I think of you, often, and hope things are better.
My love,
Oliver
To Roald Hoffmann
Chemist, Nobel Laureate
April 29, 1999
2 Horatio St., New York
Dear Roald,
I just got back from Australia yesterday—cemented bonds with family and friends, came to feel, more and more, Australia as a “second home.” I met your cousins (twice), went swimming with them too. […]
I enjoyed a visit—several visits—to the Australian Museum, especially to the wonderful mineral collection (the Chapman collection) they have there now; and a charming mineralogist/vulcanologist (Lin Sutherland) spent an afternoon showing me “behind the scenes,” showing me, amongst other treasures, a rather favorite mineral—stolzite; raspite too—the tungsten analogue(s) of our almost-edible wulfenite, and with the same range of colors as this. I longed to get some—but it is (now) very rare, most of the (? unique) Broken Hill deposits having been long since exhausted. Can one get synthetic (crystals of) lead tungstate? There were other, palaeontological wonders too—slabs of rock from an entire Devonian billabong, with thousands of fish-fossils most exquisitely preserved, and the opalized jaws of a Mesozoic Australian mammal (figured on a cover of Nature back in ’85 or so). The enthusiasm in the Museum was very contagious.
There was a meteorological event of (literally) stunning proportions in my first week—a HAILSTORM of gigantic hailstones, many of fist-size. (The epicentre, as it happens, was right over us in Woollahra.) An immense, incredible roar at the start (I thought a jet was crashing into the house), then this tremendous crashing as icy rocks were hurled at the house (we lost four skylights, tiles, windows, car windscreens—the total damage in Sydney in excess of a billion $). I put some of these monster hailstones in the freezer, but thought they would not survive the journey back (one, fractured on impact, showed beautiful concentric rings of transparent and opaque ice, the visible evidence of its building-up as it fell). I thought of Thor throwing thunderbolts, or a shower of meteorites—it is amazing that so few injuries were sustained (tho’ a neighbour, venturing out to protect his car, had his hand broken by the impact of a hailstone on it, and I heard of one man killed while in his car, by an almost kg-stone which went through the car-roof. […]
My best,
Oliver
To Stephen J. Gould and Rhonda Shearer
July 22, 1999
2 Horatio St., New York
Dear Stephen and Rhonda,
It was lovely seeing you both on the 9th[*37]—I had been feeling a bit low lately, and the party, and the people who came, cheered me up immensely (and, I think, have got me back on a more positive track). Auden always used to say one must celebrate, celebrate birthdays, whatever, however one is feeling—and I have found this proves right, has worked out, again and again.
I would/should have written earlier, but I have been savoring your books—Animal Magnetism,[*38] and Rocks of Ages. I am rather a slow reader, especially when I am also writing, and Rocks of Ages has set me to ruminating a bit (the more so as I have also been reading Jane Goodall’s autobiography (subtitled “A Spiritual Journey”) and seeing how complementary the two “magisteria” have been for/in her. I also had dinner a few days ago with a cousin of mine from Jerusalem[*39]—a great mathematician, and also deeply Orthodox. When (cautiously!) I brought up Creationists with him, he said, with a smile, that there was one at the table—and I drew back, feeling I was on delicate ground. He is also a Pythagorean (and a Cantorian and Brouwerian) who feels that numbers exist, are real and eternal, as opposed to the transitory abstractions which are ourselves. (He is in a most painful state now, his wife died a few months ago—but beyond this there are states-of-mind in him I cannot fathom, I find unintelligible.)
I think this cousin of mine (who is a grandson of the firstborn, as I am the fourth son of the 16th born) is probably rather similar to my mother’s father (his great-grandfather), who was also a mathematician and mystically-religiously inclined. This conjunction of passion for maths or the physical sciences with deep religious feeling was present in most of my mother’s brothers, though diluted, perhaps, in my mother herself. My parents were “orthodox” in practice, but I am not sure what they “believed,” nor that “belief” was ever discussed. What “religious” feeling I may have had myself as a child got rudely broken when I was evacuated at the age of six, and effectively cut off from family & community. When I see Giotto paintings I ache (perhaps we all do), but I have been (as long as conscious memory goes) a sort of atheist (curious, sometimes wistful, often indifferent, never militant), and this feeling deepens (or becomes indurated) with the years (Jonathan Miller also calls himself “an old Jewish atheist”). I have every “respect” (at least in outward ways) for those who believe; I enjoy working with the Little Sisters of the Poor, and in an orthodox Jewish Hospital, as I have done for thirty years; but, in general, avoid talking on the subject. (I regard conversation on religion, sex or politics as dangerous here, except when one is with close friends—what an unholy brew of them blew up with the impeachment proceedings!) But having said this, I am still not sure that I in fact allow two “magisteria”—at least in areas where the natural or scientific apply—“anthropic principles” strike me as either ludicrous or tautologous; “creation science” (of course) I am wholly with you on (I did tell you, did I not, that Alex Ritchie was beaten up and mauled by creationists in Australia, when he simply asked a question about Noah’s Ark at a meeting?); and talk of “parapsychology” and astrology and ghosts and spirits infuriates me, with their implication of “another,” as-it-were parallel world. But when I read poetry, or listen to Mozart, or see selfless acts, I do, of course feel a “higher” domain (but one which Nature reaches up to, not separate in nature). Anyhow, I shouldn’t be babbling in this way.
I found the excerpts from Darwin’s letter(s) to Asa Gray enormously moving—I think I must read it/them in its/their entirety. I was much interested by your chapter on William Jennings Bryan, whom I had (ignorantly) regarded previously as a mere buffoon and a bigot; you illuminate his life and motives, so he becomes at least intelligible (intellectually and emotionally)—and it helps (at least psychologically) to understand “the other side.” (I have not read Polkinghorne—do I have the name right?—the quantum physicist in England who is also a Reverend, and has written on the “parallels” between quantum theory and religion.) I love the way you organize Rocks of Ages in “parables”—Doubting Thomas etc. etc.—it seems a perfect way to do it. And how fairly, and irenically, you present the two realms—was Irenaeus actually irenic? I have known you as a battler, in fine polemic form (a hint of this comes through, when you talk here about creationism), but it is very good to see you in irenic form too. I think you have written a noble book in Rocks (as well as being erudite, charming, personable, as in all you write). Thank you so much for giving (and beautifully inscribing) me a copy—and for coming. I am around in the summer—let’s see each other again.
My love to you both,
Oliver
To Howard Gardner
Educational Psychologist
August 2, 1999
2 Horatio St., New York
Dear Howard,
I have just received a proof of your new book,[*40] which I shall devour with eagerness. I opened it, straightaway, to your discussion of “The Naturalist Intelligence,” and am very happy to see it securely admitted to “Number Eight” among the Intelligences. (I have just been reading a proof of Jane Goodall’s autobiography, and one sees how early and clearly this presented itself in her—though also how clearly a “moral” and a “spiritual” intelligence emerged in her too.)
As soon as I started reading, all sorts of (perhaps silly) questions came to my mind—questions you perhaps address in the book. But, precipitately and prematurely, I think I shall mention some of them.
Writing a sort of “scientific autobiography” of my own (a title which a Planck can use, but hardly myself!), I have especially been thinking back to my first passion, which was chemistry; and the nature of the “Chemical” intelligence, with its capacity (and disposition) to perceive, remember, order, thousands of sensory appearances and phenomena. It is very nicely described by Liebig in his Autobiography (see enclosed, from Brock biography of Liebig). I think this sort of intelligence is clearly akin to a biophilia, a naturalistic one—and of course many naturalists at this time (or perhaps a little earlier) were at once chemists, mineralogists, botanists (and often physicians)—like Berzelius, for example. In my boyhood there was a tendency to classify young “nerds” by whether they were prone to dissect animals, to play with chemistry sets, or to take radios apart. Now playing with chemistry sets, or having labs of one’s own, is no longer possible—see my attached Op-Ed piece;[*41] and since chemistry itself has changed so much (one no longer does bench-analysis, one no longer uses one’s senses, one just pops the specimen into the mass-spectograph, and out pops a list of instrument-readings), it seems to me that this sort of Liebigian-Davyan-Faradayan “chemical intelligence” may now be all but extinct.
The whole question of “obsolete” or “extinct” intelligences, as well as potential ones, is hinted at, I suspect, throughout your new book: “new” ones associated with the rise of computers etc; “outmoded” ones—the chemical is an example. Also certain sorts of physical/clinical. My father, like all doctors of his time, was a virtuoso in percussing and ausculting the chest, he seemed to “see” the minutest abnormalities through his fingers and ears. Now radiology has displaced this skill, this “intelligence”—and perhaps Medicine, like Chemistry, is reducing itself to instrument-readings, moving away from its primal biological intelligence. (I wonder how one might classify “clinical intelligence”—it has obvious affinities to “naturalist” intelligence, but then again.)
I enclose the opening page of Max Planck’s Scientific Autobiography. One sees here something very different from the “sensory” intelligence Liebig speaks of—a primary passion for Theory, for Law. I am not sure whether “mathematico-logical” is quite the right term for this—whether the old dichotomy of practical and theoretical intelligences should not be called upon too. Or the (Pascalian) dichotomy of “analytic/intuitive”—Keynes seems to bring this up comparing the economist’s intelligence with the theoretical physicist’s. […]
And again—I saw Theodore Bikel in an astounding performance yesterday—what of the actor’s gifts, the actor’s “intelligence”: is this just a sum(mation) of verbal, kinesthetic, interpersonal etc. or is there something uniquely “histrionic”? (It is often present from a very early age.) Are there “born” actors, like “born” musicians? So many questions.
Basically I just wanted to say that merely opening your book set my mind going at 1000 mph, and I am sure this will be so, once again, for a host of readers. So, all my congratulations!
With best wishes,
Oliver
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As the new millennium approached, a number of magazine editors asked OS for prognostications about the future, and occasionally he replied.
To Charles A. Riley II
Editor, We Magazine[*42]
August 21, 1999
2 Horatio St., New York
Dear Dr. Riley,
Some question! What may the next 1000 years bring to the lives and images of people with disabilities?
It could bring unimaginable technical and medical advances—“neuroprotective” drugs to halt, slow, reverse or prevent all sorts of neurodegenerative diseases, like Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, etc. Nerve-growth factor etc—to promote healing and regeneration in the nervous system. Implants of foetal nerve-tissue—or (most probably, less problematically) of stem-cells, or embryonic cells, grown in tissue-culture—which could develop and replace nerve cells which have been damaged. A vast realm of gene-therapy, now in its infancy, will open up.
We will see surgery (our present micro-surgery is only a start) of an incredible minuteness—a sort of “nano-surgery,” able to address individual cells, and perhaps individual organelles or molecules within the cells.
“Bionics,” clearly, has almost unlimited potentials, and not just at the level of bio-engineering new limbs and prostheses of exquisite sophistication, but providing new or replacement “modules” for the brain. It even seems to me possible that a sort of “electronic telepathy” could be provided for those who are “locked in” (from strokes or other mishaps) and unable to communicate in any of the usual ways.
But equally—and no less crucial—must be a change in societal and cultural attitudes to the disabled, a change in their “image” (and, of course, their own self-image). Not just an absence of discrimination and stigmatization; not just a sympathetic understanding and awareness; but a vivid appreciation and respect for the disabled as individual people, individuals whose perspectives are different from our own, and who may create lives and selves from a quite different center, and of the unique roles the disabled may play by virtue of this. Thus, there are (potentially) special forms of sensibility, of imagination, of language and culture, which one may see among the Deaf, and in some people with Tourette’s syndrome—forms which need to be recognized and encouraged. Such a positive view of the disabled makes the very word “disability” quite inadequate, even misleading—a distinction made very clear by the Deaf community itself, which speaks of “Deafness” (with a capital D) as a special form of existential and linguistic and cultural individuality, as opposed to “deafness” (with a small d), which means “hearing-impaired” or “-disabled.” This, of course, is a special case—but all people who are disabled, whatever the disability, have, have to have, “compensations” of various sorts, powers, possibilities, increased (and, so to speak, demanded) by their disabilities. So it is not just a question of “awareness” or “compassion,” but a perception of the positive powers and roles of the disabled: this has already led to major changes of attitudes in the last 20 years, and one hopes these will deepen in the next millennium.
