Obituary: Neurologist Oliver Sacks took readers to ‘uncharted regions of human experience’
The eminent neurologist and author of Awakenings has died at the age of 82
Dr. Oliver Sacks, whose books like The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat probed distant ranges of human experience by compassionately portraying people with severe and sometimes bizarre neurological conditions, has died. He was 82.
Sacks died on Sunday at his home in New York City, his assistant, Kate Edgar, said.
Sacks had announced in February 2015 that he was terminally ill with a rare eye cancer that had spread to his liver.
As a practising neurologist, Sacks looked at some of his patients with a writer’s eye and found publishing gold.
In his best-selling 1985 book, he described a man who really did mistake his wife’s face for his hat while visiting Sacks’ office, because his brain had difficulty interpreting what he saw. Another story in the book featured autistic twins who had trouble with ordinary maths but who could perform other amazing calculations.
Sacks’ 1973 book, Awakenings, about hospital patients who’d spent decades in a kind of frozen state until Sacks tried a new treatment, led to a 1990 movie in which Sacks was portrayed by Robin Williams. It was nominated for three Academy Awards.