Author and neurologist Oliver Sacks dies at 82
NEW YORK. KAZINFORM: Renowned neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks, who explored the mysteries of the human brain in a series of best-selling books, died Sunday at age 82, the New York Times reported.
Sacks' longtime personal assistant, Kate Edgar, told the Times he died at his home in New York after a battle with cancer. Sacks was the author of the 1973 book "Awakenings," which detailed his real-life experience with patients who suffered from a condition known as encephalitis lethargica, and how they were able to exit - however briefly - from their catatonic states with the aid of a drug. The story was adapted into a 1990 Oscar-nominated film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro. Sacks announced in February that he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer after a rare melanoma of the eye diagnosed nine years earlier was found to have spread to his liver. "I feel grateful that I have been granted nine years of good health and productivity since the original diagnosis, but now I am face to face with dying," he wrote in an essay in the New York Times opinion page. "It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me. I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can." Born in London, he was educated at Oxford and then emigrated to Canada, then to the United States, arriving in New York in 1965 where he taught, wrote and practiced for the rest of his life. Dr. Sacks was the author of several other books about unusual medical conditions, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat and The Island Of The Colorblind. He was awarded several honorary degrees recognizing his contribution to science and literature, as well as a CBE in 2008 in the Queen's Birthday Honors. Jacqui Graham, Dr. Sacks' publicist, told the BBC he was "unlike anybody else I've ever met." She said she received an e-mail from Dr. Sacks' long-time PA saying the neurologist had "a very good death, in the same way that he'd had a very good life." Graham said: "He died surrounded by the things he loved and the people he loved, very peacefully, after an illness he had known about since January this year. He taught us a great deal, right up until the very end. Source: Arab News