The persistence of vision: a story of freakish perception

Kas · The persistence of vision: a story of freakish perception

While watching a movie three years ago at Christmas, neurologist and author Oliver Sacks felt a migraine behind his right eye. He went to a doctor, who told him it was a rare and malignant form of cancer.

Not long ago, Sacks' eye would have been removed. The doctor reassuringly told him that "he'd taken out thousands." But the lasers and radiation of modern medicine let Sacks fight back. It turned out to be a losing fight -- but one that allowed Sacks to chronicle the deterioration of his sight, bearing literal eyewitness to the confounding relationship between sight and vision.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/the-persistence.html