A Very Decided Preference: Life With Peter Medawar [Hardcover]

J. S. Medawar (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1990

In 1969, at the age of 54, Peter Medawar had won a Nobel prize and was a successful scientist, writer, administrator and teacher when a massive cerebral hemorrhage crippled his body. Here is the story of Peter's epic battle to return to an active life--the hopeful, daily progress of one foot after the other. Photographs.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Survival was the "very decided preference" of British Nobel Prize-winning immunologist, writer and teacher Medawar who, in 1969, at 54, was crippled by the first of several cerebral hemorrhages. The respect for him expressed in this beautifully written account by his wife precludes mere pity, nor does she seek to idealize this already exceptional man. Along with recalling her husband's dogged efforts to recover lost mobility, vision and speech, and to resume an active life after each successive stroke, the author relates the couple's world travels, and celebrates with often humorous anecdotes their rich professional, family and social life in an inspiring chronicle. Peter Medawar died in 1987. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In addition to being a Nobel Prize-winning scientist whose work helped pave the way for modern skin and transplant surgery, Sir Peter Medawar, says his widow in this loving memoir, was also a philosopher, writer, teacher, administrator, opera lover, and admirable human being. After suffering a stroke in 1969, Medawar slowed down, but continued his life work. The chapters that cover the years up to Medawar's stroke--his student years, his rise to professorship, the hardships of the war years in England, and his early research with rodents--are the more interesting, however, and you have to admire someone who modestly "acknowledged that any fame he had achieved had been made possible by climbing onto the shoulders of mice." Recommended for popular science collections.
- Natalie Kupferberg, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., New York
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; 1st edition (July 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393028208
• ISBN-13: 978-0393028201
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,105,637 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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