Remembering Oliver Sacks, the Poet Laureate of Modern Medicine

Neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks at the 2009 Brooklyn Book Festival

Photo by Luigi Novi

The man with the seemingly insatiable curiosity for life left it on Sunday. Writer and neurologist Oliver Sacks died at the age of 82 of cancer. He revealed this February that a tumor had metastasized to his liver, and yet continued to write with clarity and joy about his passions and even about the prospect of dying. He wrote many bestsellers about the oddities of the human mind, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Awakenings, which was made into a movie. Scientist Mark Mehler and bookworm Michael Silverblatt look back on the life and legacy of the man who was often called the "poet laureate of modern medicine."