On the Move (Sacks)

Author Bio
• Birth—July 9, 1933
• Where—Willesden, London, England, UK
• Death—August 30, 2015
• Where—New York City, New York
• Education—B.A., M.D., Oxford University
• Awards—(see below)


Oliver Wolf Sacks was a British neurologist, naturalist, and author who spent his professional life in the United States. For Sacks, the brain was the "most incredible thing in the universe" and therefore a valuable field of study. He became widely known for writing best-selling case histories about his patients' disorders, with some of his books adapted for film and stage.

Early life
Sacks was born in Willesden, London, England, the youngest of four children born to Jewish parents: Samuel Sacks, a Lithuanian Jewish physician, and Muriel Elsie Landau, one of the first female surgeons in England. Sacks had a large extended family, including the director and writer Jonathan Lynn and first cousins, the Israeli statesman Abba Eban, and the Nobel Laureate Robert Aumann.

When Sacks was six years old, he and his brother Michael were evacuated from London to escape the Blitz, retreating to a boarding school in the 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."

He later attended St Paul's School in London. During his youth he was a keen amateur chemist, as recalled in his 2001 memoir Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood. He also came to share his parents' enthusiasm for medicine, entering Queen's College, Oxford, in 1951. There he earned a BA degree in physiology and biology in 1956.

Although not required, Sacks chose to stay on for an additional year to undertake research, having been inspired by a course taught by Hugh Macdonald Sinclair. Sacks recalls,

I had been seduced by a series of vivid lectures on the history of medicine.... And now, in Sinclair's lectures, 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, focusing his research on the toxic and commonly abused drug Jamaica ginger, 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, so he wrote uphis research findings but stopped working on the subject.

As a result of his disappointment, he fell into depression, at which point his tutor at Queen's College and his parents suggested he take time away from his studies. In the summer of 1955, his parents offered to send him to an Israeli kibbutz where, they felt, the physical labor would do him good.

Sacks later described his experience on the kibbutz as an "anodyne to the lonely, torturing months in Sinclair's lab." He lost 60 pounds (27 kg), traveled around the country, scuba dived in the Red Sea, and began to reconsider his future. "I was 'cured' now; it was time to return to medicine, to start clinical work, seeing patients in London."

Medical training
Sacks began medical school in 1956 and for the next two and half years took courses in medicine, surgery, orthopedics, pediatrics, neurology, psychiatry, dermatology, infectious diseases, obstetrics and various other specialties. He followed up his formal training with a year-long internship at Middlesex Hospital, split between its medical and neurological units. However, after completing the internships in 1960, Sacks was uncertain about his future.

He left England and flew into Montreal, Canada, on 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, RCAF told him he would be best in medical research. It was suggested that he take time to reconsider. He used the next three months to travel across Canada, deep into the Canadian Rockies, which he described in his personal journal, later published as Canada: Pause, 1960.

He next made his way from there to the United States where he completed a residency in Neurology at Mt. Zion Hospital in San Francisco, as well as fellowships in Neurology and Psychiatry at UCLA. It was during his time at UCLA that he experimented with various recreational drugs, describing his experiences in his 2012 book Hallucinations.

Medicine
After completing his residency in neurology in 1965, Sacks relocated to New York to became professor of neurology at New York University School of Medicine, remaining with that institution for most of his career.

In 1966 he began consulting at chronic care facility Beth Abraham Hospital in the Bronx. He worked there with a group of survivors of the 1920s outbreak of encephalitis lethargica—sleeping sickness—who had been unable to move on their own for decades. The story of their treatment became the basis of Sacks's most well-known book, his 1973 Awakenings.

Sacks's work at Beth Abraham helped lay the foundation for the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function, and Sacks served as honorary medical adviser. The Institute honored Sacks with its first Music Has Power Award in 2000 and again in 2006. The latter commemorated "his 40 years at Beth Abraham and honor his outstanding contributions in support of music therapy and the effect of music on the human brain and mind."

From 1966 to 2007, Sacks served as an instructor and later as clinical professor of neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He 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" in recognition of his work in bridging the arts and sciences.

Sacks returned to New York University School of Medicine in 2012, serving as a professor of neurology and consulting neurologist in the center's epilepsy center.

In addition to his academic work, Sacks maintained a practice in New York City. He also served on the boards of The Neurosciences Institute and the New York Botanical Garden.

Writing
Beginning in 1970, Sacks wrote of his experience with neurological patients. His books have been translated into more than 25 languages. In addition, he was a regular contributor to The New Yorker, New York Review of Books, and various medical, scientific and general publications. He was awarded the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science in 2001.

Sacks's work was featured in a "broader range of media than those of any other contemporary medical author." In 1990 the New York Times referred to him as "a kind of poet laureate of contemporary medicine." His books use a wealth of narrative detail to focus on the experiences of patients who are often able to adapt despite neurological conditions usually considered incurable.

Awakenings, his most famous book (and the basis for the 1990 feature film), describes his use of the then new drug levodopa on post-encephalitic patients at Beth Abraham. The 1973 book was also the subject of the first documentary made for the British television series Discovery.

In other books, he describes cases of Tourette's syndrome and the various effects of Parkinson's disease. The title essay in his 1985 book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat centers on a man with visual agnosia—the inability of the brain to interpret visual information—and was the subject of a 1986 opera by Michael Nyman.

His article "An Anthropologist on Mars," which won a Polk Award for magazine reporting, is about Temple Grandin, the autistic professor who instituted more human treatment methods in the beef cattle industry. Seeing Voices, Sacks's 1989 book, covers a variety of topics in Deaf studies.

In his book The Island of the Colorblind, Sacks wrote about an island whose residents have a high incidence of achromatopsia—total color blindness, low visual acuity, and high photophobia. He also describes the Chamorro people of Guam, many of whom suffer from a neurodegenerative disease known as Lytico-Bodig disease—a devastating combination of ALS, dementia and parkinsonism. Along with Paul Alan Cox, Sacks published papers suggesting a possible cause for the cluster—a toxin from the cycad nut transmitted by the flying fox bat.

In November 2012, Sacks released his book Hallucinations which examines why ordinary people sometimes experience hallucinations. "Hallucinations don't belong wholly to the insane, " he explains. "Much more commonly, they are linked to sensory deprivation, intoxication, illness or injury."

Sacks also wrote about the little known phenomenon called Charles Bonnet syndrome, which has been found to occur in elderly people who have lost their eyesight.

Sacks was the author of The Mind's Eye, The Oxcaca Journal, On The Move: A Life, and numerous articles in The New Yorker.

Criticism
Sacks sometimes faced criticism from the medical and disability studies communities.

• Arthur K. Shapiro, an expert on Tourette syndrome, called Sacks's work "idiosyncratic," relying too heavily on anecdotal evidence.
• Researcher Makoto Yamaguchi thought Sacks's mathematical explanations in his study of the numerically gifted savant twins (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat), were irrelevant.
• British academic and disability rights activist Tom Shakespeare called Sacks "the man who mistook his patients for a literary career," while another critic called his work "a high-brow freak show."

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...but it's a delicate business."

Personal
Sacks declined to share details from his personal life until later in life. In a 2001 interview he discussed his severe shyness—describing it as "a disease" and a lifelong impediment to his personal interactions. Much later, in a 2015 Vanity Fair article, he talked about his earlier years in California when he indulged in

...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.

He waged a lifelong battle with prosopagnosia—face blindness—which he discussed in a 2010 New Yorker piece. He also wrote about a near-fatal accident at 41, a year after the publication of Awakenings, when he fell and broke his leg while mountaineering alone.

Sacks lived alone, never marrying. In 2008, after nearly 35 years of celibacy, he entered into a relationship with writer and New York Times contributor Bill Hayes. In his 2015 autobiography On the Move: A Life, he addressed his homosexuality for the first time.

Illness and death
In 2006 Sacks underwent radiation therapy for a uveal melanoma in his right eye. He discussed his loss of stereoscopic vision caused by the treatment in a 2010 article, and expanded on it later that year in his book The Mind's Eye.

In January, 2015, metastases from the ocular tumor were discovered in his liver and brain. Sacks announced this development in a February 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," adding...

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.

Sacks died from the disease on August 30, 2015, at his home in Manhattan. He was 82.

Honors
???? -  Fellow—Royal College of Physicians (FRCP)
1990 - Honorary Doctorate: Georgetown University
1991 - Honorary Doctorate: (3) Tufts University, New York Medical College, and College of Staten Island
1992 - Honorary Doctorate: (2) Medical College of Pennsylvania and Bard College
1996 - Member: American Academy of Arts and Letters (Literature)
1999 - Fellow: New York Academy of Sciences; Honorary Fellow—The Queen's College, Oxford.
2002 - Fellow: American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Humanities and Arts / Literature)
2001 - Honorary Doctorate: Queen's University (Ontario); Lewis Thomas Prize—Rockefeller University
2005 - Honorary Doctorate: 2) Oxford University and Gallaudet University
2006 - Honorary Doctorate: Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru
2008 - Honorary Doctorate: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
2008 - Commander of the order of the British Empire (CBE)

Sacks was named to the position "Columbia Artist" from Columbia University in 2007, a post that was created specifically for him. The title granted Sacks unfettered access to the University, regardless of department or discipline.

The minor planet 84928 Oliversacks, discovered in 2003, was named in his honor.

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." (Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 11/18/2015.)