Oliver Sacks, Neurologist And Author Of ‘Awakenings,’ Dies At 82

Oliver Sacks, a renowned neurologist and best-selling author, died of cancer yesterday at the age of 82.

OLIVER SACKS DIES

Sacks was born in London and died in his New York home early Sunday morning. He suffered from an ocular tumor that had metastasized to his brain and liver.

Oliver Sacks died early this morning at his home in Greenwich Village, surrounded by his close friends and family. He was 82 years old.

— Oliver Sacks (@OliverSacks) August 30, 2015

Sacks earned his medical degree from The Queen’s College in Oxford in 1960. He taught neurology and psychiatry at the NYU School of Medicine and Columbia University. Sacks wrote numerous books on neurological disorders such as The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and The Mind’s Eyes. In The Mind’s Eye, he recounts his own experience with prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize faces.

In 1973 Sacks published the memoir Awakenings which illustrates his efforts to treat victims of the 1920s encephalitis epidemic with the then-new drug L-DOPA. The drug was supposed to bring the victims out of their catatonic state. The memoir was turned into a film in 1990 starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro.

In his 2015 autobiography On The Move: A Life, he addressed being gay for the first time. In 2008 he had a brief relationship with Bill Hayes, a writer and contributor for the New York Times.

A tweet was posted on Sacks’ account yesterday stating that he had spent his last days well. “He spent his final days doing what he loved – playing piano, writing to friends, swimming, and enjoying smoked salmon.”

He spent his final days doing what he loved—playing piano, writing to friends, swimming, and enjoying smoked salmon. https://t.co/Ua0dHvJPQz

— Oliver Sacks (@OliverSacks) August 30, 2015