Neurologist and author Oliver Sacks dies aged 82

The news of his death was announced by his long time personal assistant Kate Edgar and reported in the New York Times, which he regularly wrote for.

Dr Sachs published an article in February about his illness in which he declared that his “luck had run out” and that this cancer could not be beaten.

“I feel grateful that I have been granted nine years of good health and productivity since the original diagnosis, but now I am face to face with dying. The cancer occupies a third of my liver, and though its advance may be slowed, this particular sort of cancer cannot be halted.”

My luck has run out – a few weeks ago I learned that I have multiple metastases in the liver. – Dr Oliver Sacks, My Own Life – New York Times

Dr Sachs was the author of several books including Awakenings, which inspired the Oscar-nominated film of the same name. The book was based on his experience of working with patients who were treated with a drug that woke them up after spending years in a catatonic state.

He also wrote The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat and The Island of the Colourblind.

Dr Sachs was born in 1933 in London into a family of physicians and scientists. He has lived as a practising neurologist in New York since 1965.