Oliver Wolf Sacks

Strictly speaking, Oliver Sacks was a physician who took up writing. But his authorial impact was such that it makes equal sense to think of him as a writer who happened to have a broad knowledge of medicine. He mined that knowledge for insights into what it is to be human, whether in sickness or in health. His most celebrated medical achievement was the use of L-dopa in the treatment of a group of patients affected by the epidemic of encephalitis lethargica in the 1920s. It was also this, chronicled in his 1973 book Awakenings and the subsequent film, that brought him to public attention.