The Island Of The Colorblind

 Oliver Sacks wrote The Island Of The Colorblind. I really enjoyed reading Hallucinations and The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat and Awakenings. This book talks about his fascination with islands and swimming. He visits an island in Micronesia that had a group of people who are colorblind. Their eyes do not have cones which makes it difficult to see, sensitive to the sun, and unable to see colors. At night their vision is superior to those of us who can see color. Sacks brought along another doctor from Norway who is also colorblind. They distributed sun glasses, shades, and magnifying glasses to the colorblind children and adults on the island. On a separate trip he traveled to Guam. On Guam there are a large group of islanders suffering from Lytico-Bodig disease which resembles ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. With another doctor on the island doing research they hypothesize that the disease comes from eating the seeds of tree ferns called cycads. People on this island did eat the seeds after they soaked them to remove the toxin. Or maybe they got the disease from eating the bats who ate the cycad seeds. He describes each patient they visit and their symptoms. Sacks is clearly fascinated by brain diseases. The theory that cycad seeds caused the disease is never proven but luckily no one has come down with the disease endemic to Guam since 1951. I did not like this book as much as the other ones I have read by him. The travel details seemed unnecessary and distracting. His summarizing of the history of the two islands seemed sketchy and paternalistic.