Customer Reviews

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

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This collection of essays has held a special place on my shelf and in my heart for many years. I return to it often for both the ideas and the wonderful sense of life that Lewis Thomas injects into his writing.

I have read other reviews here questioning both the scientific value of these essays and the author's scientific creditials. As for the latter - this man has been a doctor, a field researcher, a lab director, a professor, the dean of Yale medical school, President of the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and member of the Presidential Science Advisory Board. If you have an issue with these credentials your standards are a little too high.

To speak of the scientific value of this book is difficult. Lewis Thomas didn't write like Steven Jay Gould, with clear theses, dates and names and cited research. He is more like Douglas Hofstadter. (if this comparison helps) I imagine that Lewis Thomas wrote these essays late at night after a day filled with details and the reductionism of modern science. These essays are the antithesis of what his days must have entailed.

What we find on paper here are both the whimsical musisngs and deepest thoughts of a brilliant man whose whole life was devoted to practicing and teaching science. He writes beautifully, with humour, zest, and a sense of wonder that I find endlessly captivating. His love of the natural world is infectious.

Please read this book. Of all the science books I've read (I have two science degrees) and all the fiction I've read, this book continues to inspire, teach, and amaze me.

The title of the book comes from one of the most unusual instances of symbiosis that exists in nature. A form of jellyfish accepts a snail larva, which then proceeds to feast on the jellyfish until it becomes a truncated parasite on the mouth of the snail. This remnant is capable of reproducing and the cycle begins anew. As Thomas writes so eloquently, it is a misnomer to label such examples of biological cooperation as a parasitic relationship. Both species benefit greatly, each serving to protect and nourish the other at some point in their life-cycle.
What is difficult to understand is how such a relationship could be generated. All organisms are marked by very specific molecular structures, which may be the most species-specific characteristic there is. How these two creatures could somehow forgive the presence of another until the relationship could develop is completely unknown. But any solution would have profound consequences for medicine. Any ability to turn the immune system on and off at will would allow for tremendous advances in battles against specific diseases. It would then be possible to turn on specific antibodies against whatever disease is currently a threat.
The remainder of the book is just as interesting, as Thomas continues in putting forward his philosophy of mother earth as a cooperative biological entity. While his analogy of the cellular cooperation of an organism to that of the biosphere of the earth is a stretch, there is enough truth to take it seriously. Like all his books after the original, I enjoyed it, but wish he would not recycle material used in earlier books. There is so much new biological wonder and he is so talented a writer that I would have loved to see what new material he could generate.

This is quite simply one of the best written books on biology that you'll ever read. If you are in the camp which believes that scientists use one side of their brain, and that writers use the other, be prepared for a big surprise. If you've read Bill Bryson, you may already realize that there are a gifted few who possess both talents. This is a collection of 29 very brief essays (they average only 6 pages each). Prepare to be thoroughly amazed by Dr. Lewis Thomas' descriptions of the most remarkable features of our natural world. The title story serves to illustrate his literary technique.

This essay is a mere four and a half pages. The protagonists are a sea slug and a jellyfish, which Dr. Thomas re-christens with artistic license. The lead sentence is "We've never been so self-conscious as we seem to be these days." Then follows some three pages about how lower animals (coral polyps, for example) have some, yet undiscovered method of discriminating between their own species (self) and others which may be extremely close. Then, as if to prove the general rule with a startling exception, Dr. Thomas shows how a particular medusa and snail in the Sea of Naples appear to be confused about their molecular configuration and fuse into a single organism. The jellyfish (medusa) is affixed to the mouth of the slug (snail), and when the slug produces larvae, one becomes entrapped in the tentacles of the tiny jellyfish. At first it looks like the parasite is the predator. But no. The slug larvae eats away at the jellyfish from the inside and as the jellyfish shrinks, the slug grows, until a new equilibrium is reached in adulthood. Lewis finishes by saying that this cycle is so bizarre, so thoroughly unexpected, and so confusing that "I cannot get my mind to stay still and think it through."

Now you have twenty-eight essays to go, and I assure you that your mind will not be able to stay still through any of them.

One of my favorites isn't about science at all, but about punctuation. Yes, literally, punctuation. In writing about the uses, and misuses, of parentheses, commas, semicolons, exclamation points, quote marks, and dashes, Dr. Thomas employs them in the relevant paragraph in such a way as to draw the readers' attention. Take for instance the comma:

"The commas are the most useful and usable of all the stops. It is highly important to put them in place as you go along. If you try to come back after doing a paragraph and stick them in the various spots that tempt you you will discover that they tend to swarm like minnows into all sorts of crevices whose existence you hadn't realized and before you know it the whole long sentence becomes immobilized and lashes up squirming in commas. Better to use them sparingly, and with affection, precisely when the need for each one arises, nicely, by itself."

If Dr. Thomas carries a dominant theme throughout the book, it is that a liberal education is critically important, even for a very dedicated scientist.

While I sat through boring lectures and starch staining labs, this book sat on a shelf somewhere waiting for me to read it. At that time, I believed all science not just biology were just boring fact-finding and number recording. Given this book earlier, I may have had a different life. A hobby that I enjoy now may have been a fulfilling career.

Lewis will show you that biology is about more than dissection and grainy movies from the early eighties. His essays touch on a wide variety of subjects. However, all contain a sense of wonder that is sadly lacking in our schools, at least when I was there. Read this if you would like to find or rekindle your love of science.

This collection of essays or thoughts or whatever it is classified as is wonderfully honest and simple. Thomas brings a certain wit and charm to some complex and taboo subjects such as dying, disease, warts, etc that allows you to totally disconnect and look at the big picture. For college folk out there the section on 'premeds' is especially funny.

I bought this book for the essay "Thinking about Thinking," and it was worth buying the entire book for that one essay. I have yet to read the rest of the book but this essay deals with cognition of music, and is appropriate for the ages. A must have for every musician (and possibly for music psychologists as well)!

While browsing through some unknown audio books on a shelf one day, I happened to come across this little gem. I had no idea what the Medusa and the snail could be about, but I did know that it was in the biology and medical science section. So naturally I assumed it was the story of an ugly girl who was cured by a short doctor nicknamed "the snail". I could not have been more mistaken! This book is a collection of essays by my new favorite author, Lewis Thomas, a renowned physician, professor, and researcher. This book covers such topics as transcendental worry meditation, committee mentality, pre-med cliques, and why making mistakes is really a good thing. He adds an amazing sense of humor and uncanny wit to a vast wealth of knowledge to create this masterpiece. I wasn't super fond of the narrator (who tends to drone on like a computer voice), but I was so enamored that it didn't really bother me. This book is a must! It's laugh-out-loud funny, outrageously clever and drop dead brilliant. Five-stars, take it to the bank!

A wonderfully well-written book by a man who possessed extraordinary knowledge, an insatiable quest for more, yet realized that all of man's scientific knowledge is minute in the entire scheme of life.

This is a great book. I wish I had known about it years ago. Lewis Thomas is just a great writer, full of personality and wonder. The first thing you should read is the essay on warts. I know. Why would anyone write about warts? It's one of the finest pieces of writing I've read, and I recommend it to anyone. Uplifting, makes you proud (and humble) to be a human being.

This may not be for the technically minded. It is however for the reader who longs for a sense of magic once felt while young. The magic lost in real life. This book made me want to look for more interesting biology and science books. It is a great leap ahead of his book "the lives of a cell".