Oliver Sacks, a 20th Century Poet Laureate and Doctor Dies At The Age of 82 in USA

A prominent neurologist and an eminent author Dr. Oliver Sacks, died at the age of 82 on Aug 30 in Manhattan, USA.His writings were mainly based on the intricacies of the brain and his famous books include "Awakenings" and "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” which had numerous information about the brain disorders. He also wrote books on hallucinations, migraines, blindness, LSD and mescaline.

He was suffering from terminal liver cancer and also at times he struggled with drug abuse and acute shyness. He also suffered from prosopagnosia, a disorder that leaves victims unable to recognize faces.

He was born in London and then he moved to United States during his childhood. He was a professor at the New York University School of Medicine. He worked on some patients affected with encephalitis lethargica. They had been left untreated for decades, where Sacks administered an experimental psychoactive drug known as L-dopa to them. The drug turned out to be a failure as it resulted in development of seizures or maniac behavior in the administered patients.

Sacks wrote about the patients in the 1973 book "Awakenings," which led to the 1990 Oscar-nominated movie of the same name, starring Robin Williams as a character based on Sacks and Robert de Niro as one of his patients. His autobiography, "On the Move: A Life," was released in May 2015.

Source-Medindia