Oliver Sacks Dies @ 82

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Perknose

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Oliver Sacks, the neurologist and acclaimed author who explored some of the brain’s strangest pathways in best-selling case histories like “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,” using his patients’ disorders as starting points for eloquent meditations on consciousness and the human condition, died Sunday at his home in New York City. He was 82.

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As a medical doctor and a writer, Dr. Sacks achieved a level of popular renown rare among scientists. More than a million copies of his books are in print in the United States, his work was adapted for film and stage, and he received about 10,000 letters a year. (“I invariably reply to people under 10, over 90 or in prison,” he once said.)

Dr. Sacks variously described his books and essays as case histories, pathographies, clinical tales or “neurological novels.” His subjects included Madeleine J., a blind woman who perceived her hands only as useless “lumps of dough”; Jimmie G., a submarine radio operator whose amnesia stranded him for more than three decades in 1945; and Dr. P. — the man who mistook his wife for a hat — whose brain lost the ability to decipher what his eyes were seeing.

Describing his patients’ struggles and sometimes uncanny gifts, Dr. Sacks helped introduce syndromes like Tourette’s or Asperger’s to a general audience. But he illuminated their characters as much as their conditions; he humanized and demystified them.

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“I had always liked to see myself as a naturalist or explorer,” Dr. Sacks wrote in “A Leg to Stand On” (1984), about his own experiences recovering from muscle surgery. “I had explored many strange, neuropsychological lands — the furthest Arctics and Tropics of neurological disorder.”

His intellectual curiosity took him even further. On his website, Dr. Sacks maintained a partial list of topics he had written about. It included aging, amnesia, color, deafness, dreams, ferns, Freud, hallucinations, neural Darwinism, phantom limbs, photography, pre-Columbian history, swimming and twins.

We lost an amazing and unique man today. :(
 

disappoint

Lifer
Dec 7, 2009
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Reminds me a bit of Dr. Daniel Dennett. Although Dr. Dennett was more of a philosopher trying to understand the typical human mind and consciousness rather than the atypical or disturbed minds Dr. Sacks was famously working with. Though I've no doubt Dr. Sacks was interested in understanding both.

Anyone tackling such an undertaking as understanding the human mind is rare and at the very least valued member of society for sure. Anyone who makes progress doing so is incredible and amazing indeed.

Just watched Dr. Dennett's TED talk on consciousness again to refresh my memory on the subject: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on_our_consciousness?language=en#t-136799

I'm in search of works by Dr. Sacks now.

In closing, there are 2 ways of looking at this, the loss of a great man, which evokes a sad feeling. The other way of looking at it is 82 years of a life spent well. Of a life not wasted, but used to contribute to society, to humanity. I choose to do the latter as I often try to look on the bright side.
 
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kranky

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I remember reading "The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat" and how mystifying and captivating it was. I had never heard of anything like those illnesses he documented. It really made me think about how little we understand the human brain.

It would take a special kind of person to deal with those issues. RIP Dr. Stone.
 

allisolm

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Those not familiar with his name might remember the movie Awakenings, starring Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro. It was based on one of Dr Sack's books about his own work with L-DOPA and catatonic patients.
 
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