The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher

by Lewis Thomas, Stuart Langton (Narrated by)

Overview

Lewis Thomas has been compared to a philosopher who uses the language of biology. His fascinating observations on the quirkiness of the world's infinite creations causes the listener to ponder the workings of the cosmos through the most microscopic of life forms.

The medusa, a tiny jellyfish that lives on the ventral surface of a sea slug, becomes a metaphor for eternal issues of life and death as Thomas further extends the exploration of man and his world which he began in The Lives of a Cell. Among the treasures in this magnificent book are essays on the human genius for making mistakes, on disease and natural death, on cloning, on warts, and on Montaigne, as well as an assessment of medical science and health care. In these essays and others, Thomas once again conveys his observations of the scientific world in his eloquent prose marked by wonder and wit.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781433283734
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	02/19/2008
Edition description:	Unabridged

About the Author

Lewis Thomas (1913-1993), was born in New York. He earned a Bachelor’s degree at Princeton and a doctorate in medicine in 1937. He went on to become Professor of Pediatric Research at the University of Minnesota, Chairman of the Departments of Pathology and Medicine and also Dean at the New York University—Bellevue Medical Center, Chairman of the Department of Pathology and Dean at Yale Medical School, and President of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. His now classic book, The Lives of a Cell, won the National Book Award in 1974.

Stuart Langton is an award-winning theater, film, and television actor. He has been a narrator of audiobooks for more than ten years. He lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

The Medusa and the Snail
The Tucson Zoo
The Youngest and Brightest Thing Around
On Magic in Medicine
The Wonderful Mistake
Ponds
To Err Is Human
The Selves
The Health-Care System
On Cloning a Human Being
On Etymons and Hybrids
The Hazards of Science
On Warts
On Transcendental Metaworry (TMW)
An Apology
On Disease
On Natural Death
A Trip Abroad
On Meddling
On Committees
The Scrambler in the Mind
Notes on Punctuation
The Deacon's Masterpiece
How to Fix the Premedical Curriculum
A Brief Historical Note on Medical Economics
Why Montaigne Is Not a Bore
On Thinking About Thinking
On Embryology
Medical Lessons from History