Oliver Sacks, who died in 2015, first came to public attention with his descriptions of fascinating neurological conditions in accessible articles and books. He was one of the first doctors to attempt to break down the barriers between the medical profession and the layman by eschewing esoteric jargon and explaining complex brain pathology simply while never losing sight of the patient as a human being.
He exuded compassion and honesty. He brought attention to little-known illnesses such as encephalitis lethargica, or sleeping sickness, of which there was an epidemic after the first world war. In his book Awakenings (1973), he wrote about how these patients were locked into a syndrome similar to severe Parkinson’s; how they responded, almost miraculously, to the drug L-dopa; and how, tragically, they then stopped responding to it.
He showed similar sympathy for sufferers from Tourette’s, deafness, autism, genetic colour blindness, migraines and many other little-understood conditions. His holistic outlook was exemplified by his investigations into the effects of the arts – especially music – on the brain. But his interests were not confined to neurology. He also published articles on plants, worms and cephalopods. Outside of work, he was a motorbike enthusiast, a weightlifter and an enthusiastic imbiber of recreational drugs. He was also an ardent letter writer.
With the help of others, Sacks’s longtime friend and editor Kate Edgar has gathered together hundreds of the letters he wrote to family, friends, readers, patients and fans during the decades he lived in America. He moved there after studying medicine at Oxford and doing house jobs at the Middlesex in London – his ostensible reasons being to explore the country and progress in medicine away from the stultifying, conservative structure in the UK.
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