Neurologist and Author Oliver Sacks Dead at 82

Physician, writer and humanist Oliver Sacks has died of cancer at age 82. Sacks was famous for "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat" and other books, including his account in "Awakenings" (later made into a well-recieved film) of administering treatment which resulted in several patients emerging from their comas. The Guardian reports: When he revealed that he had terminal cancer, Sacks quoted one of his favourite philosophers, David Hume. On discovering that he was mortally ill at 65, Hume wrote: “I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution. I have suffered very little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange, have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a moment’s abatement of my spirits. I possess the same ardour as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company. “I am ... a man of mild dispositions, of command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions.”

Comments

RIP Oliver Sacks

[PopeRatzo]

I mistook my sock for a wife once.

Seriously though, the dude wrote some great stuff on human perception of music and the brain's processing of musical information.

http://www.oliversacks.com/boo...

Plus, he was kind of a badass:

https://rhystranter.files.word...

http://media.jrn.com/images/b9...

It's sad when one of these bright lights goes out.

Re:RIP Oliver Sacks

[pr0t0]

There is also a great RadioLab podcast about Dr. Sacks. He was a regular contributor to the show, and they offered a farewell remembrance of/to him this past spring. The remembrance is the last half of the podcast and starts at about 31:34 if you want to skip to that.

http://www.radiolab.org/story/...

Your continued contributions to the world will be greatly missed by all who knew you, and those of us who had only heard you. Rest well, good sir.

Re:Thanks for your life

[Mal-2]

It only took 82 years and a hell of a lot of drugs (most of them admittedly taken early in life).

We're gonna miss you, man. The World Science Festival was always better for your presence, that's for sure, and that's how I got the most direct exposure to you.

Sad

[wonkey_monkey]

Let us all doff our wives as a mark of respect.

Err... yeah, that comes out sounding worse than I meant it to.

Won't See His Kind Again

[Tokolosh]

I read "Uncle Tungsten" recently and was enthralled. His childhood adventures are completely impossible in today's collective cultural nervous breakdown. As a result, intellects such as his, with concomitant advances in knowledge, are smothered. We are doomed to suffocating stagnation.