Oliver Sacks

{{Infobox medical person

|name = Oliver Sacks

|honorific_suffix = CBE FRCP

|image = Dr. Oliver Sacks, Physician, Author.jpg

|image_size =

|alt = A grey-haired Oliver Sacks with glasses and a beard

|caption = Sacks in 1985

|birth_name = Oliver Wolf Sacks

|birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1933|07|09}}

|birth_place = London, England

|death_date = {{death date and age|2015|08|30|1933|07|09|df=yes}}

|death_place = New York City, U.S.

|profession = Physician, professor, author, neurologist

|work_institutions = {{nowrap|New York University
Columbia University
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
University of Warwick
Little Sisters of the Poor}}

|education = University of Oxford (BA, BM BCh){{cite web |title=OLIVER SACKS, MD, FRCP, CBE |url=https://www.oliversacks.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Oliver-Sacks-cv-2014.pdf |access-date=19 January 2023 |website=oliversacks.com |archive-date=30 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220630101321/https://www.oliversacks.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Oliver-Sacks-cv-2014.pdf |url-status=live }}

|specialism = Neurology

|partner = Bill Hayes (2009–2015)

|known_for = Non-fiction books about his psychiatric and neurological patients

|signature = Oliver Sacks signature.svg

|website = {{URL|oliversacks.com}}

}}

Oliver Wolf Sacks (9 July 1933 – 30 August 2015) was a British neurologist, naturalist, historian of science, and writer.{{cite news |last=Cowles |first=Gregory |title=Oliver Sacks, Neurologist Who Wrote About the Brain's Quirks, Dies at 82 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/science/oliver-sacks-dies-at-82-neurologist-and-author-explored-the-brains-quirks.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=30 August 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210120235553/https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/science/oliver-sacks-dies-at-82-neurologist-and-author-explored-the-brains-quirks.html |archive-date=20 January 2021}}

Born in London, Sacks received his medical degree in 1958 from The Queen's College, Oxford, before moving to the United States, where he spent most of his career. He interned at Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco and completed his residency in neurology and neuropathology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Later, he served as neurologist at Beth Abraham Hospital's chronic-care facility in the Bronx, where he worked with a group of survivors of the 1920s sleeping sickness encephalitis lethargica epidemic, who had been unable to move on their own for decades. His treatment of those patients became the basis of his 1973 book Awakenings,{{cite web |title=Biography. Oliver Sacks, MD, FRCP |url=http://www.oliversacks.com/about.htm |url-status=dead |website=oliversacks.com |publisher=Official website |access-date=9 August 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080602091838/http://www.oliversacks.com/about.htm |archive-date=2 June 2008}} which was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated feature film, in 1990, starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro.

His numerous other best-selling books were mostly collections of case studies of people, including himself, with neurological disorders. He also published hundreds of articles (both peer-reviewed scientific articles and articles for a general audience), about neurological disorders, history of science, natural history, and nature. The New York Times called him a "poet laureate of contemporary medicine", and "one of the great clinical writers of the 20th century".{{cite news |title=In the Region of Lost Minds |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/sacks-mistook.html |work=The New York Times |access-date=18 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160817042639/https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/sacks-mistook.html |archive-date=17 August 2016}} Some of his books were adapted for plays by major playwrights, feature films, animated short films, opera, dance, fine art, and musical works in the classical genre.{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34102119 |title=Oliver Sacks dies in New York aged 82 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160927133718/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34102119|archivedate=27 September 2016 |work=BBC News |accessdate= 30 August 2015}} His book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, which describes the case histories of some of his patients, became the basis of an opera of the same name.

Early life and education

Oliver Wolf Sacks was born in Cricklewood, London, England, the youngest of four children born to Jewish parents: Samuel Sacks, a Lithuanian Jewish{{cite magazine|title=Meals and Memories|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/09/14/filter-fish|magazine=The New Yorker|date=7 September 2015|access-date=22 September 2015|archive-date=23 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923031729/http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/09/14/filter-fish|url-status=live}}{{cite web|title=Profile: Oliver Sacks|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/mar/05/booksonhealth.whauden|website=The Guardian|date=5 March 2005|access-date=22 September 2015|archive-date=10 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150910224711/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/mar/05/booksonhealth.whauden|url-status=live}} doctor (died June 1990),An Anthropologist on Mars (Knopf, 1995), p. 70 and Muriel Elsie Landau, one of the first female surgeons in England (died 1972),{{cite ODNB|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-110718|title=Sacks, Oliver Wolf (1933–2015), neurologist |last=May |first=Alex|year=2019|doi=10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.110718|access-date=11 October 2019}} who was one of 18 siblings.{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/mar/05/booksonhealth.whauden|title=Oliver Sacks Profile: Seeing double|last=Brown |first=Andrew|author-link=Andrew Brown (writer)|work=The Guardian|date=5 March 2005|access-date=10 August 2008|archive-date=25 December 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131225160619/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/mar/05/booksonhealth.whauden|url-status=live}} She would sometimes bring home deformed fetuses from work, where she would dissect them with her son as a way for him to learn about human anatomy.[https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2010/oct/17/profile-oliver-sacks-author-neurologist Oliver Sacks: The visionary who can't recognise faces] Sacks had an extremely large extended family of eminent scientists, physicians and other notable people, including the director and writer Jonathan Lynn{{cite news|url=http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel-election-2015/.premium-1.638950|title=Herzog family tree|newspaper=Haaretz|access-date=1 September 2015|archive-date=23 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923061444/http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel-election-2015/.premium-1.638950|url-status=live}} and first cousins the Israeli statesman Abba Eban{{cite web|url=http://www.webofstories.com/play/oliver.sacks/76|title=Oliver Sacks – Scientist – Abba Eban, my extraordinary cousin|publisher=Web of Stories|date=2 October 2012|access-date=24 August 2015|archive-date=19 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150919031757/http://www.webofstories.com/play/oliver.sacks/76|url-status=live}} and the Nobel Laureate Robert Aumann.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/opinion/sunday/oliver-sacks-sabbath.html|title=Oliver Sacks: Sabbath|newspaper=The New York Times|date=16 August 2015|access-date=24 August 2015|archive-date=21 August 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150821161159/http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/opinion/sunday/oliver-sacks-sabbath.html|url-status=live}}{{efn|Although it has been said that Sacks was a cousin of the former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom Jonathan Sacks, Baron Sacks, the two were not related.{{cite web |url=https://leftfootforward.org/2015/09/times-apologises-for-saying-oliver-sacks-was-related-to-chief-rabbi-in-obituary/ |title=Times apologises for saying Oliver Sacks was related to chief rabbi in obituary|publisher=Left Foot Forward|date=2 September 2015|archive-date=2 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230102170027/https://leftfootforward.org/2015/09/times-apologises-for-saying-oliver-sacks-was-related-to-chief-rabbi-in-obituary/ |url-status=live }} This confusion may be due to an obituary written by Oliver Sacks's nephew Jonathan Sacks.{{cite web |last1=Sacks |first1=Jonathan |title=Oliver Sacks Remembered by his Nephew |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/27/oliver-sacks-reminiscence-obituary-nephew-neurologist-awakenings |website=The Guardian |date=27 December 2015 |access-date=10 May 2022 |archive-date=10 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220510210043/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/27/oliver-sacks-reminiscence-obituary-nephew-neurologist-awakenings |url-status=live }}}}

In December 1939, when Sacks was six years old, he and his older brother Michael were evacuated from London to escape the Blitz, and sent to a boarding school in the English Midlands where he remained until 1943. Unknown to his family, at the school, he and his brother Michael "subsisted on meager rations of turnips and beetroot and suffered cruel punishments at the hands of a sadistic headmaster."Nadine Epstein, (2008), [http://www.momentmag.com/uncle-xenon-the-elemental-oliver-sacks-2/ Uncle Xenon: The Element of Oliver Sacks] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160104185242/http://www.momentmag.com/uncle-xenon-the-elemental-oliver-sacks-2/|date=4 January 2016}} Moment Magazine This is detailed in his first autobiography, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood.{{cite book|title=Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood|last=Sacks|first=Oliver|publisher=Vintage Books|isbn=0-375-40448-1|year=2001|url=https://archive.org/details/uncletungstenmem00sack}} Beginning with his return home at the age of 10, under his Uncle Dave's tutelage, he became an intensely focused amateur chemist. Later, he attended St Paul's School in London, where he developed lifelong friendships with Jonathan Miller and Eric Korn.{{cite news|title=Eric Korn: Polymath whose work took in poetry, literary criticism, antiquarian bookselling and the 'Round Britain Quiz'|newspaper=The Independent|date=19 December 2014|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/eric-korn-polymath-whose-work-took-in-poetry-literary-criticism-antiquarian-bookselling-and-the-9934584.html|access-date=22 June 2019|archive-date=22 June 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190622170023/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/eric-korn-polymath-whose-work-took-in-poetry-literary-criticism-antiquarian-bookselling-and-the-9934584.html|url-status=live}}

=Study of medicine=

During adolescence he shared an intense interest in biology with these friends, and later came to share his parents' enthusiasm for medicine. He chose to study medicine at university and entered The Queen's College, Oxford in 1951. The first half studying medicine at Oxford is pre-clinical, and he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in physiology and biology in 1956.{{cite web |title=Sacks, Oliver Wolf, (9 July 1933–30 Aug. 2015), neurologist and writer; Professor of Neurology, and Consulting Neurologist, Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, New York University, since 2012 |url=http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whoswho/U33627 |website=Who Was Who |publisher=Oxford University Press |access-date=25 June 2022 |date=1 December 2016 |archive-date=20 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230120023945/https://www.ukwhoswho.com/display/10.1093/ww/9780199540891.001.0001/ww-9780199540884-e-33627 |url-status=live }}

Although not required, Sacks chose to stay on for an additional year to undertake research after he had taken a course by Hugh Macdonald Sinclair. Sacks recalls, "I had been seduced by a series of vivid lectures on the history of medicine and nutrition, given by Sinclair{{nbsp}}... it was the history of physiology, the ideas and personalities of physiologists, which came to life." Sacks then became involved with the school's Laboratory of Human Nutrition under Sinclair. Sacks focused his research on the patent medicine Jamaica ginger, a toxic and commonly abused drug known to cause irreversible nerve damage. After devoting months to research he was disappointed by the lack of help and guidance he received from Sinclair. Sacks wrote up an account of his research findings but stopped working on the subject. As a result he became depressed: "I felt myself sinking into a state of quiet but in some ways agitated despair."

His tutor at Queen's and his parents, seeing his lowered emotional state, suggested he extricate himself from academic studies for a period. His parents then suggested he spend the summer of 1955 living on Israeli kibbutz Ein HaShofet, where the physical labour would help him.{{cite web|url=http://www.momentmag.com/book-review-on-the-move/|title=Book Review// On the Move|last=Brent|first=Frances|date=1 September 2015|magazine=Moment|access-date=9 February 2016|archive-date=22 February 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160222053436/http://www.momentmag.com/book-review-on-the-move/|url-status=live}} Sacks later described his experience on the kibbutz as an "anodyne to the lonely, torturing months in Sinclair's lab". He said he lost {{convert|60|lb|kg}} from his previously overweight body as a result of the healthy, hard physical labour he performed there. He spent time travelling around the country with time spent scuba diving at the Red Sea port city of Eilat, and began to reconsider his future: "I wondered again, as I had wondered when I first went to Oxford, whether I really wanted to become a doctor. I had become very interested in neurophysiology, but I also loved marine biology;{{nbsp}}... But I was 'cured' now; it was time to return to medicine, to start clinical work, seeing patients in London."

{{quote box||align=right|width=25em|bgcolor=Cornsilk|quote=My pre-med studies in anatomy and physiology at Oxford had not prepared me in the least for real medicine. Seeing patients, listening to them, trying to enter (or at least imagine) their experiences and predicaments, feeling concerned for them, taking responsibility for them, was quite new to me{{nbsp}}... It was not just a question of diagnosis and treatment; much graver questions could present themselves—questions about the quality of life and whether life was even worth living in some circumstances.|source= — Oliver Sacks}}

In 1956, Sacks began his study of clinical medicine at the University of Oxford and Middlesex Hospital Medical School. For the next two-and-a-half years, he took courses in medicine, surgery, orthopaedics, paediatrics, neurology, psychiatry, dermatology, infectious diseases, obstetrics, and various other disciplines. During his years as a student, he helped home-deliver a number of babies. In 1958, he graduated with Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (BM BCh) degrees, and, as was usual at Oxford, his BA was later promoted to a Master of Arts (MA Oxon) degree.{{cite web |title=Oliver Sacks, MD, FRCP |url=http://www.oliversacks.com/cv.htm |url-status=dead |publisher=Official site |access-date=9 August 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080713041725/http://www.oliversacks.com/cv.htm |archive-date=13 July 2008}}

Having completed his medical degree, Sacks began his pre-registration house officer rotations at Middlesex Hospital the following month. "My eldest brother, Marcus, had trained at the Middlesex," he said, "and now I was following his footsteps." Before beginning his house officer post, he said he first wanted some hospital experience to gain more confidence, and took a job at a hospital in St Albans where his mother had worked as an emergency surgeon during the war.{{citation needed|date=June 2022}} He then did his first six-month post in Middlesex Hospital's medical unit, followed by another six months in its neurological unit. He completed his pre-registration year in June 1960, but was uncertain about his future.

Beginning life in North America

File:Oliver Sacks.jpg

Sacks left Britain and flew to Montreal, Canada, on 9 July 1960, his 27th birthday. He visited the Montreal Neurological Institute and the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), telling them that he wanted to be a pilot. After some interviews and checking his background, they told him he would be best in medical research. But as he kept making mistakes, including losing data from several months of research, destroying irreplaceable slides, and losing biological samples, his supervisors had second thoughts about him.{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?next_url=https%3a%2f%2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2fopinions%2fthe-man-who-mistook-his-life-for-a-blunder%2f2015%2f05%2f13%2ff25faec8-ef56-11e4-a55f-38924fca94f9_story.html |title=Oliver Sacks chronicles the hilarious errors of his professional life and the fumbles in his private life |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=18 July 2020 |archive-date=18 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200718045728/https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?next_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fopinions%2Fthe-man-who-mistook-his-life-for-a-blunder%2F2015%2F05%2F13%2Ff25faec8-ef56-11e4-a55f-38924fca94f9_story.html |url-status=live }} Dr. Taylor, the head medical officer, told him, "You are clearly talented and we would love to have you, but I am not sure about your motives for joining." He was told to travel for a few months and reconsider. He used the next three months to travel across Canada and deep into the Canadian Rockies, which he described in his personal journal, later published as Canada: Pause, 1960.

In 1961 he arrived in the United States,{{cite journal |last1=Rowland |first1=Lewis P. |title=In Memoriam: Oliver Sacks, MD (July 9, 1933, to August 30, 2015) |journal=JAMA Neurology |date=1 February 2016 |volume=73 |issue=2 |pages=246–247 |doi=10.1001/jamaneurol.2015.3887 |pmid=26857603 |issn=2168-6149|doi-access=free }} completing an internship at Mt. Zion Hospital in San Francisco and a residency in neurology and neuropathology at UCLA.{{cite web|url=http://asp.cumc.columbia.edu/facdb/profile_list.asp?uni=os2177&DepAffil=Psychiatry|title=Columbia University website, section of Psychiatry|publisher=Asp.cumc.columbia.edu|access-date=29 December 2013|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131224105729/http://asp.cumc.columbia.edu/facdb/profile_list.asp?uni=os2177&DepAffil=Psychiatry|archive-date=24 December 2013}} While in San Francisco, Sacks became a lifelong close friend of poet Thom Gunn, saying he loved his wild imagination, his strict control, and perfect poetic form. During much of his time at UCLA, he lived in a rented house in Topanga Canyon{{cite web|url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/interview/oliver-sacks-tripping-in-topanga-1963|title=Oliver Sacks: Tripping in Topanga, 1963 – The Los Angeles Review of Books|publisher=Lareviewofbooks.org|date=12 December 2012|access-date=4 May 2015|archive-date=7 July 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150707040435/https://lareviewofbooks.org/interview/oliver-sacks-tripping-in-topanga-1963|url-status=live}} and experimented with various recreational drugs. He described some of his experiences in a 2012 New Yorker article,{{cite magazine|last=Sacks|first=Oliver|title=Altered States|magazine=The New Yorker|date=27 August 2012|page=40|url=https://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/08/27/120827fa_fact_sacks|access-date=14 December 2012|archive-date=26 November 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121126043126/http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/08/27/120827fa_fact_sacks|url-status=live}} and in his book Hallucinations.Sacks, O. Hallucinations. Knopf (2012). {{ISBN|0307957241}} During his early career in California and New York City he indulged in:

{{blockquote|staggering bouts of pharmacological experimentation, underwent a fierce regimen of bodybuilding at Muscle Beach (for a time he held a California record, after he performed a full squat with 600 pounds across his shoulders), and racked up more than 100,000 leather-clad miles on his motorcycle. And then one day he gave it all up—the drugs, the sex, the motorcycles, the bodybuilding.{{cite magazine|last=Weschler|first=Lawrence|url=https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/04/oliver-sacks-autobiography-before-cancer|title=Oliver Sacks, Before the Neurologist's Cancer and New York Times Op-Ed|magazine=Vanity Fair|date=28 April 2015|access-date=24 August 2015|archive-date=19 August 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150819085333/http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/04/oliver-sacks-autobiography-before-cancer|url-status=live}}}}

He wrote that after moving to New York City, an amphetamine-facilitated epiphany that came as he read a book by the 19th-century migraine doctor Edward Liveing inspired him to chronicle his observations on neurological diseases and oddities; to become the "Liveing of our Time". Though he was a United States resident for the rest of his life, he never became a citizen. He told The Guardian in a 2005 interview, "In 1961, I declared my intention to become a United States citizen, which may have been a genuine intention, but I never got round to it. I think it may go with a slight feeling that this was only an extended visit. I rather like the words 'resident alien'. It's how I feel. I'm a sympathetic, resident, sort of visiting alien."{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/mar/05/booksonhealth.whauden|last=Brown |first=Andrew|newspaper=The Guardian|title=Seeing double|date=4 March 2005|access-date=31 May 2021|archive-date=25 December 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131225160619/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/mar/05/booksonhealth.whauden}}

Career

File:9.13.09OliverSacksByLuigiNovi.jpg

Sacks served as an instructor and later professor of clinical neurology at Yeshiva University's Albert Einstein College of Medicine from 1966 to 2007, and also held an appointment at the New York University School of Medicine from 1992 to 2007. In July 2007 he joined the faculty of Columbia University Medical Center as a professor of neurology and psychiatry. At the same time he was appointed Columbia University's first "Columbia University Artist" at the university's Morningside Heights campus, recognising the role of his work in bridging the arts and sciences. He was also a visiting professor at the University of Warwick in the UK.[http://www.newswise.com/articles/nyu-langone-medical-center-welcomes-neurologist-and-author-oliver-sacks-md "NYU Langone Medical Center Welcomes Neurologist and Author Oliver Sacks, MD"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303191805/http://www.newswise.com/articles/nyu-langone-medical-center-welcomes-neurologist-and-author-oliver-sacks-md|date=3 March 2016}}. Newswise.com. 13 September 2012. He returned to New York University School of Medicine in 2012, serving as a professor of neurology and consulting neurologist in the school's epilepsy centre.{{cite web|title=Oliver Sacks, MD, FRCP|url=http://faces.med.nyu.edu/about-us/faculty/neurologistsepileptologists/oliver-sacks-md-frcp|website=FACES (Finding a Cure for Epilepsy and Seizures)|access-date=14 September 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905153500/http://faces.med.nyu.edu/about-us/faculty/neurologistsepileptologists/oliver-sacks-md-frcp|archive-date=5 September 2015}}

Sacks's work at Beth Abraham Hospital helped provide the foundation on which the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function (IMNF) is built; Sacks was an honorary medical advisor.{{cite web|url=http://www.bethabe.org/About_the_Institute100.html|title=About the Institute|access-date=9 August 2008|publisher=Institute for Music and Neurologic Function|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080514072627/http://www.bethabe.org/About_the_Institute100.html|archive-date=14 May 2008}} The Institute honoured Sacks in 2000 with its first Music Has Power Award.{{cite journal |date=1 January 2006 |title=Henry Z. Steinway honored with 'Music Has Power' award: Beth Abraham Hospital honors piano maker for a lifetime of 'affirming the value of music' |journal=Music Trades Magazine |url=http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Henry+Z.+Steinway+honored+with+%22Music+Has+Power%22+award:+Beth+Abraham...-a0140912433 |access-date=9 August 2008}}{{Dead link|date=December 2013}} The IMNF again bestowed a Music Has Power Award on him in 2006 to commemorate "his 40 years at Beth Abraham and honour his outstanding contributions in support of music therapy and the effect of music on the human brain and mind."{{cite press release|url=http://www.pr.com/press-release/20023|title=2006 Music Has Power Awards featuring performance by Rob Thomas, honouring acclaimed neurologist & author Dr. Oliver Sacks|access-date=9 August 2008|publisher=Beth Abraham Family of Health Services|date=13 October 2006|archive-date=8 February 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090208225434/http://www.pr.com/press-release/20023|url-status=live}}

Sacks maintained a busy hospital-based practice in New York City. He accepted a very limited number of private patients, in spite of being in great demand for such consultations. He served on the boards of The Neurosciences Institute and the New York Botanical Garden.Sacks, O. Oliver Sacks Curriculum Vitae. Retrieved 7 January 2017 from http://www.oliversacks.com/os/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Oliver-Sacks-cv-2014.pdf {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160702053749/http://www.oliversacks.com/os/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Oliver-Sacks-cv-2014.pdf |date=2 July 2016}}

=Writing=

In 1967 Sacks first began to write of his experiences with some of his neurological patients. He burned his first such book, Ward 23, during an episode of self-doubt.{{cite book|first=Steve|last=Silberman|author-link=Steve Silberman|title=NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity|year=2015|publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-1583334676}} His books have been translated into over 25 languages. In addition, Sacks was a regular contributor to The New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, The New York Times, London Review of Books and numerous other medical, scientific and general publications.{{cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/search/?bylquery=%22Oliver%20Sacks%22|title=Archive: Search: The New Yorker—Oliver Sacks|magazine=The New Yorker|access-date=13 August 2008|archive-date=16 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016231913/http://www.newyorker.com/search/?bylquery=%22Oliver%20Sacks%22|url-status=live}}{{cite web|url=http://www.nybooks.com/contributors/oliver-sacks/|title=Oliver Sacks—The New York Review of Books|access-date=13 August 2008|archive-date=7 July 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100707091148/http://www.nybooks.com/contributors/oliver-sacks/|url-status=live}}{{cite web|url=http://www.oliversacks.com/peri1.htm|title=Oliver Sacks. Publications & Periodicals|publisher=oliversacks.com|access-date=13 August 2008|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080610163014/http://www.oliversacks.com/peri1.htm|archive-date=10 June 2008}} He was awarded the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science in 2001.{{cite web |url=http://lectures-events.rockefeller.edu/event_detail.php?id=11&y=2002&sub=3 |title=Lewis Thomas Prize |date=18 March 2002 |access-date=9 August 2008 |publisher=The Rockefeller University |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131101002104/http://lectures-events.rockefeller.edu/event_detail.php?id=11&y=2002&sub=3 |archive-date=1 November 2013|url-status=dead}}

Sacks's work is featured in a "broader range of media than those of any other contemporary medical author"{{cite magazine|url=https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.04/sacks_pr.html|last=Silberman |first=Steve|author-link=Steve Silberman|title=The Fully Immersive Mind of Oliver Sacks|magazine=Wired|access-date=10 August 2008|archive-date=18 February 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120218031104/http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.04/sacks_pr.html|url-status=live}} and in 1990, The New York Times wrote he "has become a kind of poet laureate of contemporary medicine".{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE4D8103FF932A35757C0A966958260|date=1 April 1990|title=Good books abut (sic) being sick|last=Broyard |first=Anatole|author-link=Anatole Broyard|work=The New York Times|access-date=10 August 2008|archive-date=15 February 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090215080508/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE4D8103FF932A35757C0A966958260|url-status=live}}

Sacks considered his literary style to have grown out of the tradition of 19th-century "clinical anecdotes", a literary style that included detailed narrative case histories, which he termed novelistic. He also counted among his inspirations the case histories of the Russian neuropsychologist A. R. Luria, who became a close friend through correspondence from 1973 until Luria's death in 1977.{{cite web|url=http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/mind/stories/s1334384.htm|title=The Inner Life of the Broken Brain: Narrative and Neurology|work=Radio National|publisher=All in the Mind|date=2 April 2005|access-date=10 August 2008|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080222173513/http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/mind/stories/s1334384.htm|archive-date=22 February 2008}}Sacks, O. (2014). Luria and "Romantic Science". In A. Yasnitsky, R. Van der Veer & M. Ferrari (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of cultural-historical psychology (517–528). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press After the publication of his first book Migraine in 1970, a review by his close friend W. H. Auden encouraged Sacks to adapt his writing style to "be metaphorical, be mythical, be whatever you need."{{cite web|last1=Wallace-Wells|first1=David|title=A Brain With a Heart|url=https://nymag.com/news/features/oliver-sacks-2012-11/|work=New York|date=3 November 2012 |access-date=30 August 2015|archive-date=6 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150906001253/http://nymag.com/news/features/oliver-sacks-2012-11/|url-status=live}}

Sacks described his cases with a wealth of narrative detail, concentrating on the experiences of the patient (in the case of his A Leg to Stand On, the patient was himself). The patients he described were often able to adapt to their situation in different ways although their neurological conditions were usually considered incurable.{{cite book|last=Sacks|first=Oliver|title=An Anthropologist on Mars|orig-year=1995|edition=New|year=1996|publisher=Picador|location=London|isbn=0-330-34347-5|pages=xiii–xviii|chapter=Preface|quote="The sense of the brain's remarkable plasticity, its capacity for the most striking adaptations, not least in the special (and often desperate) circumstances of neural or sensory mishap, has come to dominate my own perception of my patients and their lives."|no-pp=true}} His book Awakenings, upon which the 1990 feature film of the same name is based, describes his experiences using the new drug levodopa on post-encephalitic patients at the Beth Abraham Hospital, later Beth Abraham Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing, in New York. Awakenings was also the subject of the first documentary, made in 1974, for the British television series Discovery. Composer and friend of Sacks Tobias Picker composed a ballet inspired by Awakenings for the Rambert Dance Company, which was premiered by Rambert in Salford, UK in 2010;{{cite web |url=http://www.theballetbag.com/2010/09/21/rambert-awakenings/ |title=Rambert Dance Company: The Making of Awakenings |publisher=The Ballet Bag |access-date=14 December 2016 |archive-date=18 May 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140518004312/http://www.theballetbag.com/2010/09/21/rambert-awakenings/ |url-status=live }} In 2022, Picker premiered an opera of Awakenings{{cite news | first = Fiona | last = MacCarthy | authorlink=Fiona MacCarthy |newspaper = The Times | date = 5 December 1985 | title = Travels round a couch}} at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.{{cite news|url=https://news.stlpublicradio.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2020-02-13/awakenings-opera-premiering-in-st-louis-came-from-couples-mutual-inspiration|title=Awakenings Opera Premiering In St. Louis Came From Couple's Mutual Inspiration|last=Fenske|first=Sarah|work=St. Louis Public Radio|access-date=1 May 2022|archive-date=30 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201030074531/https://news.stlpublicradio.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2020-02-13/awakenings-opera-premiering-in-st-louis-came-from-couples-mutual-inspiration|url-status=live}}{{cite news|url=https://www.operanews.com/Opera_News_Magazine/2022/6/Features/Re-Awakenings.html|title=Re-Awakenings|last=Cohn|first=Fred|work=Opera News|access-date=3 September 2022|archive-date=27 September 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220927155742/https://www.operanews.com/Opera_News_Magazine/2022/6/Features/Re-Awakenings.html|url-status=live}}{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/arts/music/awakenings-opera-oliver-sacks.html|title=An Oliver Sacks Book Becomes an Opera, With Help From Friends|last=Barone|first=Joshua|work=The New York Times|date=25 May 2022|access-date=3 September 2022|archive-date=27 September 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220927155742/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/arts/music/awakenings-opera-oliver-sacks.html|url-status=live}}{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0ccs1k4|title=Awakenings opera opens three decades after Hollywood movie|last=Brook|first=Tom|work=BBC|access-date=3 September 2022|archive-date=27 September 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220927155740/https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0ccs1k4|url-status=live}}{{cite news|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/opera-theatre-of-saint-louis-tobias-picker-awakenings-oliver-sacks-stewart-wallace-michael-korie-harvey-milk-carmen-rondula-gaitanou-aryeh-lev-stollman-susanna-phillips-adrienne-danrich-andres-acosta-katharine-geoldner-jarrett-porter-james-robinson-roberto-kalb-george-moscone-dan-white-thomas-glass-cesar-andres-parreno-nathan-stark-jonathan-johnson-kyle-sanchez-tingzon-carolyn-kuan-sarah-mesko-yunuet-laguna-adam-smith-christian-pursell-rachael-nelson-cordelia-chisolm-daniela-candillari-11656366785|title='Awakenings', 'Harvey Milk' and 'Carmen' Review: Two Poignant Premieres and an Old Favorite|last=Waleson|first=Heidi|work=The Wall Street Journal|access-date=3 September 2022|archive-date=27 September 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220927155742/https://www.wsj.com/articles/opera-theatre-of-saint-louis-tobias-picker-awakenings-oliver-sacks-stewart-wallace-michael-korie-harvey-milk-carmen-rondula-gaitanou-aryeh-lev-stollman-susanna-phillips-adrienne-danrich-andres-acosta-katharine-geoldner-jarrett-porter-james-robinson-roberto-kalb-george-moscone-dan-white-thomas-glass-cesar-andres-parreno-nathan-stark-jonathan-johnson-kyle-sanchez-tingzon-carolyn-kuan-sarah-mesko-yunuet-laguna-adam-smith-christian-pursell-rachael-nelson-cordelia-chisolm-daniela-candillari-11656366785|url-status=live}}

File:Oliver Sacks at TED 2009.jpg

In his memoir A Leg to Stand On he wrote about the consequences of a near-fatal accident he had at age 41 in 1974, a year after the publication of Awakenings, when he fell off a cliff and severely injured his left leg while mountaineering alone above Hardangerfjord, Norway.{{cite magazine |title=The Bull on the Mountain |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1984/06/28/the-bull-on-the-mountain/ |first=Oliver |last=Sacks |date=28 June 1984 |magazine=The New York Review |publisher=The New York Review of Books |access-date=29 October 2024 |archive-date=15 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201115043859/https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1984/06/28/the-bull-on-the-mountain/|url-status=live}}{{cite news|last=Sacks|first=Oliver|title=The Joy of Old Age. (No Kidding.)|newspaper=The New York Times|date=6 July 2013}}

In some of his other books, he describes cases of Tourette syndrome and various effects of Parkinson's disease. The title article of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat describes a man with visual agnosia{{cite AV media|year=1987|title=Video: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1987)|url=https://archive.org/details/openmind_ep1217|publisher=The Open Mind|access-date=21 February 2012}} and was the subject of a 1986 opera by Michael Nyman. The book was edited by Kate Edgar, who formed a long-lasting partnership with Sacks, with Sacks later calling her a “mother figure” and saying that he did his best work when she was with him, including Seeing Voices, Uncle Tungsten, Musicophilia, and Hallucinations.{{cite news |last=Francis |first=Gavin |date=27 October 2024 |title=Letters by Oliver Sacks review – valuable insight into a curious mind |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/oct/27/letters-by-oliver-sacks-kate-edgar-review |access-date=5 November 2024 |work=The Observer |issn=0029-7712}}

The title article of his book An Anthropologist on Mars, which won a Polk Award for magazine reporting, is about Temple Grandin, an autistic professor. He writes in the book's preface that neurological conditions such as autism "can play a paradoxical role, by bringing out latent powers, developments, evolutions, forms of life that might never be seen, or even be imaginable, in their absence". Sacks's 1989 book Seeing Voices covers a variety of topics in deaf studies. The romantic drama film At First Sight (1999) was based on the essay "To See and Not See" in An Anthropologist on Mars. Sacks also has a small role in the film as a reporter.

In his book The Island of the Colorblind Sacks wrote about an island where many people have achromatopsia (total colourblindness, very low visual acuity and high photophobia). The second section of this book, titled Cycad Island, describes the Chamorro people of Guam, who have a high incidence of a neurodegenerative disease locally known as lytico-bodig disease (a devastating combination of ALS, dementia and parkinsonism). Later, along with Paul Alan Cox, Sacks published papers suggesting a possible environmental cause for the disease, namely the toxin beta-methylamino L-alanine (BMAA) from the cycad nut accumulating by biomagnification in the flying fox bat.{{cite journal|last1=Murch |first1=S. J. |last2=Cox |first2=P. A. |last3=Banack |first3=S. A. |last4=Steele |first4=J. C. |last5=Sacks |first5=O. W.|title=Occurrence of beta-methylamino-l-alanine (BMAA) in ALS/PDC patients from Guam|journal=Acta Neurol. Scand.|volume=110|issue=4|pages=267–9|date=October 2004|pmid=15355492|doi=10.1111/j.1600-0404.2004.00320.x|s2cid=32474959|doi-access=free}}{{cite journal|last1=Cox |first1=P. A. |last2=Sacks |first2=O. W.|title=Cycad neurotoxins, consumption of flying foxes, and ALS-PDC disease in Guam|journal=Neurology|volume=58|issue=6|pages=956–9|date=March 2002|pmid=11914415|doi=10.1212/wnl.58.6.956}}{{registration required}}

In November 2012 Sacks's book Hallucinations was published. In it he examined why ordinary people can sometimes experience hallucinations and challenged the stigma associated with the word. He explained: "Hallucinations don't belong wholly to the insane. Much more commonly, they are linked to sensory deprivation, intoxication, illness or injury."{{cite web|url=http://www.oliversacks.com/books/hallucinations/|title=Hallucinations|publisher=Oliversacks.com|access-date=24 August 2015|archive-date=8 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141008095205/http://www.oliversacks.com/books/hallucinations/|url-status=live}} He also considers the less well known Charles Bonnet syndrome, sometimes found in people who have lost their eyesight. The book was described by Entertainment Weekly as: "Elegant... An absorbing plunge into a mystery of the mind."{{cite magazine|last=Lee|first=Stephan|title=Book Review: Hallucinations|url=https://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20643720,00.html|magazine=Entertainment Weekly|access-date=20 September 2012|archive-date=23 March 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130323041122/http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20643720,00.html|url-status=dead}}

Sacks sometimes faced criticism in the medical and disability studies communities. Arthur K. Shapiro, for instance, an expert on Tourette syndrome, said Sacks's work was "idiosyncratic" and relied too much on anecdotal evidence in his writings.Kushner (2000), p. 204{{full|date=December 2024}} Researcher Makoto Yamaguchi thought Sacks's mathematical explanations, in his study of the numerically gifted savant twins (in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat), were irrelevant, and questioned Sacks's methods.{{cite web |first1=Makoto |last1=Yamaguchi |title=Savant syndrome and prime numbers |url=http://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/ppb.2009.40.issue-2/s10059-009-0023-1/s10059-009-0023-1.xml |publisher=Polish Psychological Bulletin |access-date=22 May 2021 |pages=69–73 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160820114410/http://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/ppb.2009.40.issue-2/s10059-009-0023-1/s10059-009-0023-1.xml |archive-date=20 August 2016}} Although Sacks has been characterised as a "compassionate" writer and doctor,{{cite news|url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-1044036.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121106054853/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-1044036.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=6 November 2012|title=Oliver Sacks: Hero of the Hopeless; The Doctor of 'Awakenings,' With Compassion for the Chronically Ill|last=Weinraub|first=Judith|date=13 January 1991|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=12 August 2008}}{{cite web|url=http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/entertainment/1998/08/25/1998-08-25_healthy_dose_of_compassion_i.html|title=Healthy Dose of Compassion in Medical 'Mind' Series|last=Bianculli|first=David|date=25 August 1998|work=Daily News|location=New York|access-date=12 August 2008|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090210095928/http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/entertainment/1998/08/25/1998-08-25_healthy_dose_of_compassion_i.html|archive-date=10 February 2009}}{{cite web|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CEEDB1330F937A25751C0A963958260|title=Finding the Advantages in Some Mind Disorders|last=Kakutani|first=Michiko|date=14 February 1995|work=The New York Times|access-date=12 August 2008|archive-date=13 February 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090213102013/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CEEDB1330F937A25751C0A963958260|url-status=live}} others have felt that he exploited his subjects.{{cite thesis|title=Decloaking Disability: Images of Disability and Technology in Science Fiction Media|last=Verlager|first=Alicia|date=August 2006|publisher=MIT|hdl = 1721.1/39143|type=Thesis }} Sacks was called "the man who mistook his patients for a literary career" by British academic and disability rights activist Tom Shakespeare,{{cite journal|last=Shakespeare|first=Tom|journal=Disability and Society|volume=11|issue=1|pages=137–142|title=Book Review: An Anthropologist on Mars|year=1996|doi=10.1080/09687599650023380}} and one critic called his work "a high-brow freak show".{{cite web|url=http://poynter.indiana.edu/files/4213/4513/2230/m-couser.pdf|last=Couser|first=G. Thomas|title=The Cases of Oliver Sacks: The Ethics of Neuroanthropology|date=December 2001|publisher=The Poynter Center, Indiana University|access-date=10 August 2008|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120928221931/http://poynter.indiana.edu/files/4213/4513/2230/m-couser.pdf|archive-date=28 September 2012}} Sacks responded, "I would hope that a reading of what I write shows respect and appreciation, not any wish to expose or exhibit for the thrill{{nbsp}}... but it's a delicate business."{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2002/may/10/medicalscience.scienceandnature|title=Sacks appeal|last=Burkeman|first=Oliver|author-link=Oliver Burkeman|date=10 May 2002|work=The Guardian|access-date=18 August 2008|archive-date=21 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200921171713/https://www.theguardian.com/education/2002/may/10/medicalscience.scienceandnature|url-status=live}}

He also wrote The Mind's Eye, Oaxaca Journal and On the Move: A Life (his second autobiography).

Before his death in 2015 Sacks founded the Oliver Sacks Foundation, a non-profit organization established to increase understanding of the brain through using narrative non-fiction and case histories, with goals that include publishing some of Sacks's unpublished writings, and making his vast amount of unpublished writings available for scholarly study.[http://www.oliversacks.com/a-life-well-lived/ A Life Well Lived] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170222194045/http://www.oliversacks.com/a-life-well-lived/ |date=22 February 2017 }} 30 August 2015 The first posthumous book of Sacks's writings, River of Consciousness, an anthology of his essays, was published in October 2017. Most of the essays had been previously published in various periodicals or in science-essay-anthology books, but were no longer readily obtainable. Sacks specified the order of his essays in River of Consciousness prior to his death. Some of the essays focus on repressed memories and other tricks the mind plays on itself.{{cite web|url=http://arts.theaureview.com/reviews/book-review-oliver-sacks-the-river-of-consciousness-is-a-look-inside-a-beautiful-enquiring-mind/|title=Book Review: Oliver Sacks' The River of Consciousness is a look inside a beautiful and enquiring mind|date=7 January 2018|access-date=19 January 2018|archive-date=20 January 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180120070657/http://arts.theaureview.com/reviews/book-review-oliver-sacks-the-river-of-consciousness-is-a-look-inside-a-beautiful-enquiring-mind/|url-status=live}} This was followed by a collection of some of his letters.{{cite news| last=Francis | first=Gavin | title=Letters by Oliver Sacks review – valuable insight into a curious mind |newspaper=The Observer| date=27 October 2024 | url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/oct/27/letters-by-oliver-sacks-kate-edgar-review}} Sacks was a prolific handwritten-letter correspondent, and never communicated by e-mail.

Honours

File:Oliversacks.jpg

In 1996, Sacks became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (Literature).{{cite web|url=http://www.artsandletters.org/academicians2_current.php|title=Current Members|access-date=15 August 2008|publisher=The American Academy of Arts and Letters|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160624004136/http://www.artsandletters.org/academicians2_current.php|archive-date=24 June 2016}} He was named a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences in 1999.{{cite web|url=http://www.nyas.org/about/newsDetails.asp?newsID=120&year=1999|title=New York Academy of Sciences Announces 1999 Fellows|access-date=15 August 2008|date=6 October 1999|publisher=New York Academy of Sciences|archive-date=11 February 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090211091032/http://www.nyas.org/about/newsDetails.asp?newsID=120&year=1999|url-status=live}} Also in 1999, he became an Honorary Fellow at the Queen's College, Oxford.{{cite web|url=http://www.queens.ox.ac.uk/academics/other-fellows/honorary-fellows/|title=Honorary Fellows|access-date=15 August 2008|publisher=The Queen's College, Oxford|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120323100523/http://www.queens.ox.ac.uk/academics/other-fellows/honorary-fellows/|archive-date=23 March 2012}}

In 2000, Sacks received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.{{cite web|title=Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement|website=www.achievement.org|publisher=American Academy of Achievement|url=https://www.achievement.org/our-history/golden-plate-awards/#science-exploration/|access-date=7 April 2020|archive-date=12 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171212193048/http://www.achievement.org/our-history/golden-plate-awards/#science-exploration/|url-status=live}} In 2002, he became Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Class IV—Humanities and Arts, Section 4—Literature){{cite web|url=http://www.amacad.org/members/new2002list.aspx|title=Class of 2002 – Fellows|access-date=15 August 2008|year=2002|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080513022353/http://www.amacad.org/members/new2002list.aspx|archive-date=13 May 2008}} and he was awarded the 2001 Lewis Thomas Prize by Rockefeller University.{{cite web|url=http://runews.rockefeller.edu/index.php?page=engine&id=139|title=Oliver Sacks, Awakenings Author, Receives Rockefeller University's Lewis Thomas Prize|access-date=15 August 2008|year=2002|publisher=Rockefeller University|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090208233802/http://runews.rockefeller.edu/index.php?page=engine&id=139|archive-date=8 February 2009}} Sacks was also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP).[http://www.oliversacks.com/os/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Oliver-Sacks-cv-2014.pdf Curriculum Vitae] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160702053749/http://www.oliversacks.com/os/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Oliver-Sacks-cv-2014.pdf|date=2 July 2016}} – website of Oliver Sacks

Sacks was awarded honorary doctorates from Georgetown University (1990),{{cite web|url=http://www.oliversacks.com/about-the-author/curriculum-vitae/|title=Curriculum Vitae|publisher=oliversacks.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100104113436/http://www.oliversacks.com/about-the-author/curriculum-vitae/|archive-date=4 January 2010}} College of Staten Island (1991), Tufts University (1991),{{cite web|url=http://provost.tufts.edu/institutionalresearch/files/FactBook0607Abridged.pdf|title=Tufts University Factbook 2006–2007 (abridged)|access-date=15 August 2008|format=PDF (4.7 MB)|publisher=Tufts University|page=127|archive-date=4 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304215353/http://provost.tufts.edu/institutionalresearch/files/FactBook0607Abridged.pdf|url-status=live}} New York Medical College (1991), Medical College of Pennsylvania (1992), Bard College (1992),{{cite web|url=http://www.bard.edu/catalogue/index.php?aid=11746&sid=669662|title=Bard College Catalogue 2014–2015 – Honorary Degrees|access-date=30 August 2015|publisher=Bard College|archive-date=5 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905233025/http://www.bard.edu/catalogue/index.php?aid=11746&sid=669662|url-status=live}} Queen's University at Kingston (2001),{{cite web|url=http://qnc.queensu.ca/gazette/3cd0d665d9568.pdf|title=Neurologist, peace activist among honorary graduands|access-date=15 August 2008|date=7 May 2001|work=Gazette, vol. XXXII, no. 9|publisher=Queen's University|pages=1, 2|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070415114848/http://qnc.queensu.ca/gazette/3cd0d665d9568.pdf|archive-date=15 April 2007}} Gallaudet University (2005),{{cite web|url=http://news.gallaudet.edu/newsreleases/index.asp?ID=5464|title=Famed physician delivers Commencement address|access-date=15 August 2008|date=1 May 2005|publisher=Gallaudet University|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090208225608/http://news.gallaudet.edu/newsreleases/index.asp?ID=5464|archive-date=8 February 2009}} Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (2006){{cite web|url=http://www.pucp.edu.pe/la-universidad/nuestra-universidad/historia/doctores-honoris-causa/|title=Doctores honoris causa|access-date=15 August 2008|publisher=Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú|language=es|archive-date=24 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924083132/http://www.pucp.edu.pe/la-universidad/nuestra-universidad/historia/doctores-honoris-causa/|url-status=live}} and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (2008).

Oxford University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree in June 2005.{{cite web|url=http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/po/news/2004-05/feb/14.shtml|title=2005 honorary degrees announced|date=14 February 2005|publisher=University of Oxford|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070515083407/http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/po/news/2004-05/feb/14.shtml|archive-date=15 May 2007}}

Sacks received the position "Columbia Artist" from Columbia University in 2007, a post that was created specifically for him and that gave him unconstrained access to the university, regardless of department or discipline.[http://www.cuarts.com/sacks/ Oliver Sacks @ Columbia University] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100310124838/http://www.cuarts.com/sacks/|date=10 March 2010}} Arts Initiative @ Columbia University. 2009. Retrieved 10 October 2011

On 26 November 2008, Sacks was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), for services to medicine, in the Queen's Birthday Honours.{{London Gazette|issue=58729|date=14 June 2008|page=25 |supp=y}}{{cite web|url=http://www.oliversacks.com/os/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Oliver-Sacks-cv-2014.pdf|title=Resume|website=oliversacks.com|access-date=3 September 2015|archive-date=2 July 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160702053749/http://www.oliversacks.com/os/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Oliver-Sacks-cv-2014.pdf|url-status=dead}}

The minor planet 84928 Oliversacks, discovered in 2003, was named in his honour.{{cite news |last=Bloom |first=Julie |title=Dr. Sacks's Asteroid |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/arts/13arts-DRSACKSSASTE_BRF.html |work=The New York Times |date=12 September 2008 |access-date=14 August 2008 |archive-date=17 April 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090417073501/http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/arts/13arts-DRSACKSSASTE_BRF.html |url-status=live }}

In February 2010, Sacks was named as one of the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers. He described himself as "an old Jewish atheist", a phrase borrowed from his friend Jonathan Miller.{{cite web|url=http://ffrf.org/news/releases/honorary-ffrf-board-announced/|title=Honorary FFRF Board Announced|access-date=20 August 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101217052917/http://ffrf.org/news/releases/honorary-ffrf-board-announced/|archive-date=17 December 2010}}

Personal life

Sacks never married and lived alone for most of his life. He declined to share personal details until late in his life. He addressed his homosexuality for the first time in his 2015 autobiography On the Move: A Life.Sacks, O. On the Move: A Life. Knopf (2015). {{ISBN|0385352549}} Celibate for about 35 years since his forties, in 2008 he began a friendship with writer and New York Times contributor Bill Hayes. Their friendship slowly evolved into a committed long-term partnership that lasted until Sacks's death; Hayes wrote about it in the 2017 memoir Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me.{{cite web|first=Laura|last=Miller|url=http://www.salon.com/2015/05/02/the_beautiful_mind_of_oliver_sacks_how_his_knack_for_storytelling_helped_unlock_the_mysteries_of_the_brain/|title=The beautiful mind of Oliver Sacks: How his knack for storytelling helped unlock the mysteries of the brain|work=Salon|date=2 May 2015|access-date=24 August 2015|archive-date=27 August 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150827235916/http://www.salon.com/2015/05/02/the_beautiful_mind_of_oliver_sacks_how_his_knack_for_storytelling_helped_unlock_the_mysteries_of_the_brain/|url-status=live}}

In Lawrence Weschler's biography, And How Are You, Dr. Sacks?, Sacks is described by a colleague as "deeply eccentric". A friend from his days as a medical resident mentions Sacks's need to violate taboos, like drinking blood mixed with milk, and how he frequently took drugs like LSD and speed in the early 1960s. Sacks himself shared personal information about how he got his first orgasm spontaneously while floating in a swimming pool, and later when he was giving a man a massage. He also admits having "erotic fantasies of all sorts" in a natural history museum he visited often in his youth, many of them about animals, like hippos in the mud.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/20/books/review/and-how-are-you-dr-sacks-lawrence-weschler.html|title=A Biography of Oliver Sacks, Written by His Boswell|first=Daniel|last=Bergner|newspaper=The New York Times|date=20 August 2019|access-date=11 July 2020|archive-date=11 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200711022450/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/20/books/review/and-how-are-you-dr-sacks-lawrence-weschler.html|url-status=live}}

File:Pickerandsacks.jpg, May 2015]]

Sacks noted in a 2001 interview that severe shyness, which he described as "a disease", had been a lifelong impediment to his personal interactions. He believed his shyness stemmed from his prosopagnosia, popularly known as "face blindness",{{cite web|url=http://www.cbsnews.com/news/prosopagnosia-oliver-sacks-battle-with-face-blindness/|title=Prosopagnosia: Oliver Sacks' Battle with "Face Blindness"|last=Katz |first=Neil|work=CBS News|date=26 August 2010|access-date=3 February 2010|archive-date=25 December 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131225055234/http://www.cbsnews.com/news/prosopagnosia-oliver-sacks-battle-with-face-blindness/|url-status=live}} a condition that he studied in some of his patients, including the titular man from his work The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. This neurological disability of his, whose severity and whose impact on his life Sacks did not fully grasp until he reached middle age, even sometimes prevented him from recognising his own reflection in mirrors.{{cite web|last=Sacks |first=Oliver|title=Face-Blind Why are some of us terrible at recognizing faces?|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/08/30/face-blind|magazine=The New Yorker|date=30 August 2010|access-date=19 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160410092452/http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/08/30/face-blind|archive-date=10 April 2016 |quote=My problem with recognizing faces extends not only to my nearest and dearest but also to myself. Thus, on several occasions I have apologized for almost bumping into a large bearded man, only to realize that the large bearded man was myself in a mirror.}}

Sacks swam almost daily for most of his life, beginning when his swimming-champion father started him swimming as an infant. He became well-known for open water swimming when he lived in the City Island section of the Bronx, as he routinely swam around the island or swam vast distances away from the island and back.

He was also an avid powerlifter.{{cite web|url=https://www.muscleandfitness.com/features/dr-oliver-sacks-mind-over-muscle/|title=Dr. Oliver Sacks: Mind Over Muscle|date=27 October 2015}}{{cite web|url=https://lithub.com/on-oliver-sacks-obsession-with-weightlifting/|title=On Oliver Sacks' Obsession With Weightlifting|date=18 April 2019}}{{cite web|url=https://www.oliversacks.com/oliver-sacks-books/on-the-move/|title=On The Move: A Life|website=Oliver Sacks | Official Website of Author, Neurologist & Foundation}}

Sacks was a cousin of the Nobel Memorial Economics laureate Robert Aumann.{{cite web|url=https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/he-saw-beyond-the-illnesses-into-the-souls-of-his-patients-413757|title='He saw beyond the illnesses into the souls of his patients'|website=The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com|date=31 August 2015 |access-date=10 May 2022|archive-date=10 May 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220510210105/https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/he-saw-beyond-the-illnesses-into-the-souls-of-his-patients-413757|url-status=live}}

=Illness=

Sacks underwent radiation therapy in 2006 for a uveal melanoma in his right eye. He discussed his loss of stereoscopic vision caused by the treatment, which eventually resulted in right-eye blindness, in an article{{cite journal|last=Murphy |first=John|date=9 December 2010|title=Eye to Eye with Dr. Oliver Sacks|journal=Review of Optometry|url=http://www.revoptom.com/content/c/24666|access-date=28 June 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130419060147/http://www.revoptom.com/content/c/24666|archive-date=19 April 2013|url-status=dead}} and later in his book The Mind's Eye.Sacks, O. The Mind's Eye. Knopf (2010). {{ISBN|0307272087}}.

In January 2015, metastases from the ocular tumour were discovered in his liver.{{cite news|last=Sacks|first=Oliver|title=My Own Life: Oliver Sacks on Learning He Has Terminal Cancer|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/opinion/oliver-sacks-on-learning-he-has-terminal-cancer.html|work=The New York Times|date=19 February 2015|access-date=19 February 2015|archive-date=19 February 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150219200339/http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/opinion/oliver-sacks-on-learning-he-has-terminal-cancer.html|url-status=live}} Sacks announced this development in a February 2015 New York Times op-ed piece and estimated his remaining time in "months". He expressed his intent to "live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can". He added: "I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight."

Death and legacy

Sacks died from cancer on 30 August 2015, at his home in Manhattan at the age of 82, surrounded by his closest friends.

In his obituary in The New York Times he was described as "a man of contradictions: candid and guarded, gregarious and solitary, clinical and compassionate, scientific and poetic, British and almost American. 'In 1961, I declared my intention to become a United States citizen, which may have been a genuine intention, but I never got round to it,' he told The Guardian in 2005."

The 2019 documentary Oliver Sacks: His Own Life by Ric Burns was based on "the most famous neurologist" Sacks; it noted that during his lifetime neurology resident applicants often said that they had chosen neurology after reading Sacks's works.{{cite book |last1=Wijdicks |first1=Eelco F. M. |title=Neurocinema—The Sequel: A History of Neurology on Screen |date=2022 |publisher=CRC Press |isbn=978-1-000-54916-4 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=soZjEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT58 |chapter=3. The neurologist in film|pages=55–58}} The film includes documents from Sacks's archive.{{cite web |last=Schuessler |first=Jennifer |date=4 October 2024 |title=Oliver Sacks Archive Heads to the New York Public Library |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/04/arts/oliver-sacks-archive-nypl.html |access-date=5 October 2024 |website=The New York Times}}

In 2019, A. A. Knopf signed a contract with the historian and biographer Laura J. Snyder to write a biography of Sacks based on exclusive access to his archive.{{cite web |title=Contribute to an Oliver Sacks Biography!|url=https://www.oliversacks.com/contribute-to-an-oliver-sacks-biography/|website=www.oliversacks.com|date=9 July 2019 }}

In 2024, the New York Public Library announced that it had acquired Sacks's archive, including 35,000 letters, 7,000 photographs, manuscripts of his books, and journals and notebooks.{{cite web |date=4 October 2024 |title=The New York Public Library Acquires Archive of Oliver Sacks |url=https://thecitylife.org/2024/10/04/the-new-york-public-library-acquires-archive-of-oliver-sacks/ |access-date=5 October 2024 |website=City Life Org}} In 2024, Alfred A. Knopf published a collection of his letters, edited by Kate Edgar.[https://www.oliversacks.com/oliver-sacks-books/letters/ Letters][https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/04/books/review/oliver-sacks-letters.html Review] by Dwight Garner, The New York Times, 4 November 2024.

Bibliography

=Books=

Migraine (1970) {{isbn|978-0-375-70406-2}}
Awakenings (1973) {{isbn|0-375-70405-1}}
A Leg to Stand On (1984) {{ISBN|978-0-684-85395-6}}
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1985) {{ISBN|0-671-55471-9}}
Seeing Voices: A Journey Into the World of the Deaf (1989){{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tOjavKkVRNoC&q=%22seeing%20voices%22&pg=PR1|title=Seeing Voices: A Journey Into the World of the Deaf – Oliver W. Sacks|isbn=9780520060838|access-date=24 August 2015|last1=Sacks|first1=Oliver|last2=Sacks|first2=Oliver W.|date=January 1989|publisher=University of California Press |archive-date=20 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230120023940/https://books.google.com/books?id=tOjavKkVRNoC&q=%22seeing%20voices%22&pg=PR1|url-status=live}} {{ISBN|0-520-06083-0}}
An Anthropologist on Mars (1995) {{ISBN|0-679-43785-1}}
The Island of the Colorblind (1997) {{ISBN|978-0-676-97035-7}}
Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood (2001) (first autobiography) {{ISBN|0-375-40448-1}}
Oaxaca Journal (2002) {{ISBN|978-0-307-94744-4}} (travelogue of Sacks's ten-day trip with the American Fern Society to Oaxaca, Mexico, 2000){{cite book|last1=Sacks|first1=Oliver|title=Oaxaca Journal|date=March 2002|publisher=National Geographic|isbn=0792265211}}
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (2007) {{ISBN|978-1-4000-4081-0}}
The Mind's Eye (2010) {{ISBN|978-0-307-27208-9}}
Hallucinations (2012) {{ISBN|978-0-307-95724-5}}
On the Move: A Life (2015) (second autobiography) {{ISBN|978-0-385-35254-3}}
Gratitude (2015) (published posthumously) {{ISBN|978-0451492937}}
NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman (2015) {{ISBN|978-1-583-33467-6}} (foreword by Sacks)
Oliver Sacks: The Last Interview and Other Conversations (2016) {{ISBN|978-1612195773}} (a collection of interviews)
The River of Consciousness (2017) {{ISBN|978-0-345-80899-8}}
Everything in Its Place: First Loves and Last Tales (2019) {{ISBN|978-0451492890}}
Letters (2024) {{ISBN|978-0451492913}}

=Articles=

{{cite journal |date=11 February 2019 |title=The Machine Stops: the neurologist on steam engines, smart phones, and fearing the future |department=Personal History |journal=The New Yorker |volume=94 |issue=48 |pages=28–29 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/02/11/the-machine-stops}}
{{cite journal |date=4 March 2019 |title=Telling : the intimate decisions of dementia care |department=A Neurologist's Notebook |journal=The New Yorker |volume=95 |issue=2 |pages=26–27 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/04/how-much-a-dementia-patient-needs-to-know}}Online version is titled "How Much a Dementia Patient Needs to Know" and is dated 25 February 2019.

Notes

References

External links

{{sister project links|d=Q258662|commons=category:Oliver Sacks|n=no|b=no|v=no|voy=no|mw=no|species=no|m=no|wikt=no|s=no}}

{{Official website}}
{{YouTube|u=OliverSacksMD}}
{{cite web|url=http://www.webofstories.com/play/oliver.sacks/1|title=Oliver Sacks interviewed on Web of Stories|publisher=Web of Stories}}
[https://achievement.org/achiever/oliver-sacks-m-d/#interview Oliver Sacks Biography and Interview on American Academy of Achievement]
[https://www.oliversacks.com/oliver-sacks-foundation/ The Oliver Sacks Foundation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170925213500/https://www.oliversacks.com/oliver-sacks-foundation/ |date=25 September 2017 }}

=Multimedia=

{{IMDb name|0755312}}
{{TED speaker}}
{{Charlie Rose view|2399}}
{{C-SPAN|47845}}
{{cite web|url=http://www.sciencefriday.com/guests/oliver-sacks.html#page/full-width-list/1|title=Appearances|publisher=Science Friday|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905115134/http://www.sciencefriday.com/guests/oliver-sacks.html|archive-date=5 September 2015}}
{{cite web|url=http://www.radiolab.org/people/dr-oliver-sacks/|title=Appearances|publisher=Radiolab}}
{{cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/books/authors/137993458/oliver-w-sacks|title=Appearances|publisher=NPR}}
{{cite web|url=http://www.sciencefriday.com/video/12/02/2010/desktop-diaries-oliver-sacks.html|title=Oliver Sacks|format=video|series=Desktop Diaries|work=Science Friday|publisher=National Public Radio|date=2 December 2010|first1=Katherine|last1=Wells|first2=Flora|last2=Lichtman|quote=Writer and neurologist Oliver Sacks explains what his desk means to him}}
Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/Pwqu_K0Wj4A Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20151016231913/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwqu_K0Wj4A Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{cite news|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwqu_K0Wj4A|format=video|title=Watch this Oliver Sacks interview|date=1989|publication-date=1 September 2015|work=MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour|publisher=PBS|first=Joanna|last=Simon}}{{cbignore}}
[http://scienceandfilm.org/articles/2714/the-animated-mind-of-oliver-sacks-dempsey-rice-interview Interview with Dempsey Rice, documentary filmmaker, about Oliver Sacks film]
{{IMDb title|10887164|Oliver Saks: His Own Life|(2019)}}, a documentary film by Ric Burns

=Publications=

{{NYTtopic|people/s/oliver_sacks}}
{{cite magazine|url=http://www.nybooks.com/contributors/oliver-sacks/|title=Oliver Sacks articles|magazine=The New York Review of Books}}

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