The grandson of Goldman Sachs's founder, he became Professor of Neurosurgery at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1919.

[2][4] In 1904, he received a medical degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he was taught by Professor William Osler, and he completed his three-year residency under the supervision of Arpad Gester at Mount Sinai Hospital in 1907.

[2][4] He subsequently spent three more years in Vienna, Berlin and London, where he studied under Sir Victor Horsley and he wrote a treatise about the thalamus.

[2][4][3] Sachs was a founding member of The Society of Neurological Surgeons, and he served as its Secretary-Treasurer from 1920 to 1924, and as its president from 1925 to 1927.

[2] Additionally, Sachs was an honorary member of the Royal Society of Medicine and the Deutsche Akadamie der Naturforscher Leopoldina.