'''Oliver Wolf Sacks''' (born July_9, 1933, London) is a Neurologist who has written popular books about his patients. He considers it following the tradition of 19th-century "clinical anecdotes", a literary-style that included informal case histories. His favorite example is Alexander_Luria's ''The Mind of a Mnemonist''. His famous cousin is the late Abba_Eban.
==Biography==
Sacks earned his medical degrees from Oxford_University while a member of The Queen's College and became a resident in Neurology at UCLA. He has lived in New_York since 1965. He is a clinical professor of neurology at the Albert_Einstein_College_of_Medicine, adjunct professor of neurology at the New_York_University School of Medicine, and consultant neurologist to the Little_Sisters_of_the_Poor. He has a practice in New_York_City.
Sacks describes his cases with little clinical detail, concentrating on the experiences of the patient (which was in one case himself). The patients he describes are often able to adapt to their situation in different ways despite the fact that their neurological conditions are usually considered incurable.
His most famous book, ''Awakenings'', upon which the movie of the same name is based, describes his experiences using the new drug L-Dopa on patients who were victims of the 1920s sleeping sickness (Encephalitis_lethargica) epidemic. It was also the subject of the first film made in the British television series ''Discovery''.
In his other books, he describes cases of Tourette_syndrome and various effects of Parkinson's_disease. The title article of ''The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat'' is about a man with visual Agnosia. (It was the subject of a 1986 Opera by Michael_Nyman). The title article of ''An_Anthropologist_on_Mars'' is about Temple_Grandin, a professor with high-functioning Autism. In his book ''The_Island_of_the_Colour-blind'' he describes the Chamorro people of Guam, who have a high incidence of a form of ALS known as ''Lytico-bodig''; a devastating combination of ALS, dementia, and Parkinson's disease. Along with Paul Cox, Sacks is responsible for the resurgence in interest in the Guam ALS cluster, and has published papers setting out an environmental cause for the cluster, namely toxins from the cycad nut accumulating by Biomagnification in the Flying_fox bat. Occurrence of beta-methylamino-l-alanine (BMAA) in ALS/PDC patients from Guam, ''National_Institutes_of_Health'', October_11 2004
Cycad neurotoxins, consumption of flying foxes, and ALS-PDC disease in Guam, ''National_Institutes_of_Health'', November_26 2002
Sacks's writings have been translated into 21 languages, including Catalan, Finnish, and Turkish.
In March 2006, he was one of 263 doctors who published an open letter in ''The_Lancet'' criticizing American military doctors who administered or oversaw the Force-feeding of Guantanamo detainees who had committed themselves to Hunger_strikes. Medics call for US to stop Guantanamo force feeding, ''The_Scotsman'', March_10 2006
== Books ==
*''Migraine'' (1970)
*''Awakenings'' (1973)
*''A_Leg_to_Stand_On'' (1984) (Sacks's own experience of losing the control of his legs after an accident)
*''The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat'' (1985)
* ''Seeing Voices: A Journey Into The Land of the Deaf''. (1989). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-5200-6083-0.
*''An_Anthropologist_on_Mars'' (1995)
*''The_Island_of_the_Colour-blind'' (1997) (total congenital Color_blindness in an island society)
*''Uncle_Tungsten:_Memories_of_a_Chemical_Boyhood'' (2001)
*''Oaxaca_Journal'' (2002)
==Essays==
* "The_Mind's_Eye_(Oliver_Sacks)" (positive experiences of blind people) - published in "The Best American Essays 2004", Ed. Robert Atwan
==Television series==
* The Mind Traveller
==See also==
*The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two
==References==
== External links==
* Oliver Sacks website
* Oliver Sacks Fan page
* 1989 audio interview with Oliver Sacks by Don_Swaim
* ''Wired'' article (04/2002)
* New York Times Op-Ed piece about ''encephalitis lethargica''.
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