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

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

• 
  Petra has got better things to do than GR ;-)

  This is a book of essays, mostly science-based. They aren't bad but the author has neither the depth nor the style of
  F. González-Crussí. Gonzalez-Crussi is one of my favourite essay writers whose philosophical and scientific ponderings based around pathology and mortality are impossible to review, at least for me.
  
  The best of the essays was the first one, the medusa and the snail. The medusa is a lovely jellyfish, if you like jellyfish, which I do, My favourite is
  cassiopeia which for some reason never sting me. and the snail is a nudibranch. Nudibranches have no shells and are among the beautiful,
  wildly decorative creatures in the universe. They proliferate in tropical waters and are easy to find. They are also called sea slugs but given what their land relatives look like, it's a bit misleading. I suppose though we all have just plain all-out ugly members in our families.
  
  So first off you see a snail, and it has a tiny little parasitic jellyfish attached near its mouth. At certain times of the year this vestigial creature reproduces and the its offspring grow up into large, beautiful jellyfish. The snails also produce larvae and these tiny snails become entrapped in the jellyfishes' tentacles before ending up in the bell-shaped body.
  
  At this stage you think that the jellyfish is the predator and the tiny snails foooood. But no you would be wrong. The entrapped snails feed on the innards of the jellyfish until there is almost nothing left just a tiny little jellyfish attached to the now full-grown snail's mouth. You have to believe in evolution after reading that. I'm not quite sure how they evolved but for certain what would be the point of creating two creatures who behaved like that?
  
  There were several other essays of note. The best one being on Oracle. A system for defusing committees of egos and getting results by sending out multiple choice questionaires to committee members and letting them read the other members' responses before a more focused questionaire and so on. I think the Man Booker Prize is decided like this.
  
  To sum up, it was interesting, quite. But too quirky, opinionated and dated to give it five stars. It's a 3.5 stars rounded up type of book.
  
  Updated to fix the links.
• 
  Lynne King

  “If Montaigne had possessed a deep knowledge of twentieth-century biology, he would have been Lewis Thomas.”
  
  So quoted Edward O. Lewis on the back cover of this paperback. Now I’m beginning to feel that I’m about to commence upon another magical mystery tour as I’ve never heard of this individual before. According to the Wikipedia, and I hope the following information is correct:
  
  “Edward O. Wilson is an American biologist, researcher (sociobiology, biodiversity), theorist (consilience, biophilia), naturalist (conservationist) and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants, on which he is considered to be the world's leading authority”.
  
  I’ve never come across an ant specialist before. Surely that must be rather boring after a while?
  
  I have also never heard of Lewis Thomas, who was a doctor, a poet, and an essayist among other things but the title intrigued me and as I like anything to do with biology that was enough to spark my interest. But what could the “medusa”, a jellyfish, possibly have in common with a “snail” and what kind of snail is this? Well I was soon to be enlightened. But is the author playing games here because it’s a question of a symbiotic, well indirectly as not everything is shared, relationship between a jelly fish and a nudibranch, in other words your common sea slug. But this is no ordinary slug, oh no, it’s a member of Nudibranchia, a group of soft-bodied, marine gastropod mollusks which shed their shell after their larval stage and this all happens in the Bay of Naples.
  
  This is a delightful book with a collection of relatively short essays covering so many subjects and they are all rather witty even when dealing with somewhat sad issues such as death. But Mr Thomas’ take on the latter is delightful. We have a physician here but with eclectic tastes as is apparent throughout the different essays in the book. In one it all happens in the Tucson Zoo with the beavers, otters and ants (now remember the ants!); others on warts, meddling, committees, premedical curriculum, medical lessons from history, cloning, etc. I preferred the essay on the medusa and the snail with a close second in a wonderful essay on why Montaigne is not a bore. That particular essay was so witty. Also I began to wonder why Wilson had given his particular quote on Montaigne. It appeared extraneous to the book but it certainly wasn’t.
  
  I’ve never really thought of bacteria in a positive way although I’ve always thought that they are pretty deadly and they are running all over our body (admittedly we can’t see them and that’s a relief) and also within but now I’ve found out that they are essential for our life on earth:
  
  “Without bacteria for starters, we would never have had enough oxygen to go around, nor could we have found and fixed the nitrogen for making enzymes, nor could we recycle the solid matter of life for new generations.”
  
  Thomas feels that we are a species still at the learning stage, fumbling around with our language and thought processes and yet, we’re not that bad really because we have music and we have the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, so that cannot be all bad.
  
  There’s a wonderful description on the evolution of medicine and the strange practices that were carried on. There’s an interesting concept at the beginning of the 20th century, “the theory of autointoxication, evolved, and a large part of therapy was directed at emptying the large intestine and keeping it empty.” I wonder how they managed to achieve that.
  
  It must be remembered that this book was published in 1974 and science is viewed so differently nowadays, as it has naturally evolved so much.
  
  He also believes that medicine has now returned to magic and changes in health fads, and running has now acquired the medicinal value formerly attributed to rare herbs from Indonesia. Why Indonesia?
  
  As for DNA, yes it has been scientifically proven but the author still believes we are here by chance.
  
  In conclusion, this is a thought-provoking book, with amusing turns of phrase but at the same time a delight to read; and also to be taken down from the shelf to be read in the future. I’m so pleased that I discovered it. The author’s whole book as a biology watcher is fascinating and makes me envious that I never worked in this area. It’s never too late I guess…
  
  
• 
  Jim

  Thomas is best known for
  The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher, a book I read in high school of which I have only the vaguest of recollections. I remember liking it, but it seems to have dribbled away. I can't find that old copy either. I'm buying both books through Abebooks for under $7. Both won awards & are collections of essays published in 1974, many in the New England Journal of Medicine. His wonders wander over a variety of topics; medicine, biology, general science, linguistics, & some off the wall topics like how much he enjoys
  Michel de Montaigne's essays & why. He often displays a subtle humor, but occasionally a simmering sarcasm. He doesn't give in to the last often, but several times he mentions how far we've come only to realize how little we know. There is no going back, so we must press on even though it isn't comfortable.
  
  Wikipedia:
  Lewis Thomas (November 25, 1913 – December 3, 1993) was an American physician, poet, etymologist, essayist, administrator, educator, policy advisor, and researcher.
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Th...
  
  Audio is not the best way to read this book. The chapters, each a disparate essay, are short, but contain a lot of information & need contemplation. He tends to large ideas & often leaves me with questions, especially given that his views are 40 years old, yet seem so pertinent today. I'm buying the paperback so I can read some chapters closer.
  
  One of the things I wanted to reread was when he was talking about how some diseases are simply our body over-reacting to a disease. I think meningitis was one. Apparently many are infected, but only a few respond to it poorly & then it's awful. Did I get that right?
  
  I was also intrigued by how he put harmful bacteria in to a different perspective. They're not preying on us. They're just evolution gone a bit wrong. They're too similar & that causes bad side effects. There is a very tiny number that are interested in us at all & most of those are beneficial. That's a neat way of looking at it. It's amazing how much we've extended life in the past century.
  
  I can't do an in-depth review for this edition, but will wait until I can go through the paperback. I wouldn't do his ideas justice. I will say that if you can't read it in print, this is the next best thing. Just be ready to pause & rewind occasionally. Listen closely. Excellent.
  
• 
  Chris

  Very enjoyable read. Although the subtitle indicates this will be about things in our natural world not all the essays fall into any of the hard sciences. Full review to follow. Hmm, I think I have a number of books that I need to review. (Note to self: try to complete before the end of the year).
  
  I've wanted to read his earlier work The Lives of the Cell for years and just the other day I found a copy in a used bookstore. Yay!
• 
  Adrian Colesberry

  I read this back in high school, but I reread the introduction recently. There's a fascinating discussion of the history of pharmaceutics in the 20th century. When Thomas was trained as a doctor, the pharmaceutical industry, then patent medicine industry, was being placed firmly under the thumb of doctors, who had surgical techniques and other therapies that far surpassed the effectiveness of the medicines being sold. Then sulfa drugs and penicillin changed the game and pharmaceutics took over, even though they never came up with anything even half as good as penicillin. In many ways, pharmacy as a whole is still riding on the coattails of penicillin.
• 
  Josh Friedlander

  A collection of essays on biology, medicine and, well, sundry other topics: punctuation, education, Montaigne, death. Underpinning them is a general sense that the complexity of modern knowledge prevents us from a sense of awe and wonder at life. In the title essay, we learn about the nudibranch, a sea slug that lives in the Bay of Naples, which was found to have a tiny oral parasite in the form of a jellyfish. On tracking the jellyfish's lifestyle, they found that it is in fact capable of producing offspring which are full-sized, healthy jellyfish. The snail too reproduces, and its larvae, while small, become absorbed in the tentacles of the jellyfish. Revenge? Not for long. Soon, undigested and hungry, they eat their way through the entire jellyfish from inside out, until all that is left is a small bit of parasite, attached to the inside of its mouth.
  
  Such facts cause Thomas to wonder. "I wanted never to know how they performed their marvels; I wished for no news about the physiology of their breathing, the coordination of their muscles, their vision, their endocrine systems, their digestive tracts." He is by turns primitivist - nostalgic for pre-industrial times, and thinking our desire to extend our lifetimes and medicate all pain a mistake - and techno-optimist, sceptical about attempts to limit biomedical research and moral panic about genetics. "The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behavior control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry, and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers."
  
  There are some interesting medical curiosities. Hypnotherapy seems very effective as a cure for warts. A widely quoted study on Seven Healthy Habits that extend life (eat breakfast, get a good night's sleep, exercise) probably got the causality wrong - seriously ill people are less likely to do any of these things. Most microrganisms in the body (the "biome", in today's lingo) are beneficial or harmless, and many diseases are the body fighting itself. The term "idiopathic" means that we don't know the cause of a disease. Individual organisms, even very small ones, can recognise each other, but individual cells can not. A yeast cell and a chicken erythrocyte will happily fuse and keep dividing. The greatest puzzle in life is how stem cells differentiate into specialised ones.
  
  Thomas is sceptical about sweeping explanations for public health issues (such as blaming them on environmental issues or changes in diet), but optimistic that technological and genomic advances are bringing us close to finding the primary causes for many diseases. And one last quote I liked but couldn't fit in:

  It was discovered, sometime in the 1830s, that the greater part of medicine was nonsense. The history of medicine...is so unrelievedly deplorable a story. For century after century, all the way into the remote millennia of its origins, medicine got along by sheer guesswork and the crudest sort of empiricism. It is hard to conceive of a less scientific enterprise among human endeavors. Virtually anything that could be thought up for the treatment of disease was tried out at one time or another, and, once tried, lasted decades or even centuries before being given up. It was, in retrospect, the most frivolous and irresponsible kind of human experimentation, based on nothing but trial and error, and usually resulting in precisely that sequence. Bleeding, purging, cupping, the administration of infusions of every known plant, solutions of every known metal, every conceivable diet including total fasting, most of these based on the weirdest imaginings about the cause of disease, concocted out of nothing but thin air - this was the heritage of medicine up until a little over a century ago. It is astounding that the profession survived so long, and got away with so much with so little outcry. Almost everyone seems to have been taken in. Evidently one had to be a born skeptic, like Montaigne, to see through the old nonsense.

  And
  here is the essay by James Somers that inspired me to read this.
• 
  Krista

  The only solid piece of scientific truth about which I feel totally confident is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature. Indeed, I regard this as the major discovery of the past hundred years of biology. It is, in its way, an illuminating piece of news… It is this sudden confrontation with the depth and scope of ignorance that represents the most significant contribution of twentieth-century science to the human intellect.

  
  In the blurb for
  The Medusa and the Snail, it says that listening to this book on audio “is like being fortunate enough to sit next to the most intelligent and witty guest at a dinner party“, and that is a very apt analogy. Listening to the thoughts of Lewis Thomas – a poet-physician and old-fashioned public intellectual – on subjects ranging from the horrific symbiotic nature of the two title creatures to public health policy to word origins can be inconsistently interesting but constantly impressive. Thomas had a sense of humour, dry and ironic, that made even the most esoteric subjects relatable, and it was most intriguing to me that, forty years after its publication, so much of his thought on science is still relevant today.
  
  

  Mistakes are at the very base of human thought feeding the structure like root nodules. If we were not provided with the knack of being wrong, we could never get anything useful done.

  
  When Thomas speaks about computers, they are room-sized with vacuum tubes and punch cards, but even at the time he could conceive of their power. And whether talking about computers or the idea of human cloning, he warns of the same danger: mistakes should be built into all human-made systems since it is the mutations and hiccups that have driven everything from evolution to art.
  
  

  The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music.

   
  While I was fairly bored during an entire essay on word origins which ended on an examination of the word “hubris”, I did enjoy the next essay about the debate that was raging at the time over whether or not scientists should be manipulating viruses at the risk of creating an uncontrollable superbug: with accusations of hubris from one side and anti-science ignorance from the other. As I see this debate is still playing out today, it was interesting to me to see where Thomas landed (the pursuit of all knowledge is noble but there should be limits to how it is used).
  
  As with the essay on etymology, there was a strange one on punctuation:
  
  

  Sometimes you get a glimpse of a semicolon coming, a few lines farther on, and it is like climbing a steep path through woods and seeing a wooden bench just at a bend in the road ahead, a place where you can expect to sit for a moment, catching your breath.

  
  But for every essay like this that seemed like private musings (or like how to imagine that the universe is revolving around the tip of your pencil), there was one like an examination of warts, of all things, that had me completely fascinated. The breadth of the subject matter in this small collection ought to guarantee that there's something interesting for everyone within it, and I'd have to agree that Lewis Thomas would have made an ideal dinner guest; if only because you could turn your attention to someone else if Thomas had started rambling about something less than fascinating.
• 
  Dawn Lennon

  A most curious and engaging book, full of insights and revelations from a unique perspective of biological ourselves as living things--humans.
  
  We often talk about the fact that we're just human but most of us rarely think about what that really means, losing ourselves in cultural and commercial "realities" that have a tendency to make us seem a bit outside of the banalities of our DNA.
  
  This is a book of short essays about our behavior centered around our biology. I takes us down to the root of why we think and act that way we do and uncovers the realities (actually truths) that underpin us like it or not.
  
  There's a chapter on our propensity to make mistakes and why that's always been a human asset. Another chapter deals with worry and its value. It also addresses political, medical, and social issues from that unique frame of reference--our biology.
  
  In all it was an engaging read, not too heady, but revealing in so many ways.
• 
  Julie

  I love this man's mind. This is the first I've read by him. I've neglected "The lives of a cell; notes of a biology watcher" despite several people reccomending it to me. Now I am eager to read it. This Thomas is playful, funny and loves biology, music and language and somehow blends the three in some of his essays. A delight.
• 
  Madeleine

  “most bacteria are busy with their own business, browsing and recycling the rest of life”
  
  “the capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music”
  
• 
  Terry Bonner

  What can I say? This was the book that inspired me to go to medical school. It will always hold a special place in my heart.
• 
  Vicki Cline

  This book contains several interesting essays, mostly on science but some more philosophical ones.
• 
  John Machata

  Lovely reflections of a medical scientist. Not dated.
• 
  Heidi

  An interesting science author writes on interesting social implications of science and scientific examples of social organization. The book is from 1974 but still feels pretty current - I'm actually surprised we've known some of this stuff since the 70s. The topics were wide ranging, including death, symbiosis, the history of science, specifically about antibiotics and the medical world, and some predictions of the future of science. One of my favorite points was that the world is made of very complex systems and the biggest blunders are often the result of people trying to meddle with one very small part and not realizing the many implications. He also derided colleges for encouraging students, particularly pre-med students to study the sciences too early and directionally - stifling the real scientific urges and curiousity. Finally, and with recourse to old poetry, he speaks of a mishandling of concepts of disease, injury and death - hiding death away from people. I recommend the book overall, and apparently it's the sequel to a bestseller so I might have to track down his other books.
• 
  Dan

  I have fairly jumbled thoughts about this book - perhaps because the writing style is so disorderly itself. The book opens with some really interesting and unique perspectives on the state of science and society in general. There were a few key phrases that really caught my attention and inspired one of those "aha!" moments at are the hallmark of a master writer and observationist. Unfortunately, what starts out as a quirky philosophical romp with the author rapidly sours. The essay style becomes somewhat inappropriate after a while when some of the topics loom so large and get such short thrift. By the time that Lewis Thomas got towards the end of the book, he had quite lost my attention and sympathy - what with many of the essays sounding much more random rants than anything inspired.
  
  Disappointing in the end, but the first third of the book was pretty incredible and makes me want to read more of Thomas' works. There is no doubt that he is an excellent writer. I guess it was silly of me to read this book before The Lives of a Cell.
• 
  David

  I read the famous first book by this author, "The Lives of a Cell", way back in my college years and loved it. I think I also read this collection of essays, but when I came across it recently, I felt like it was worth a second look. I enjoyed it quite a bit. The writing style is clever and witty, and the insights are good even after three decades. Since Lewis was a physician by training, many of the essays are grounded in medical research or issues. But he also considers language, music, etymology, biology, death, warts, grammar, and much more. He clearly has a sense of wonder for the world around him, which I have come to consider so important and valuable.
• 
  Neilina Corbeau

  It took me a little time to adjust to Lewis Thomas' sense of humour. It's somewhat unconventional. But once I got it, it was kinda hilarious. The last popular science book I read was by Richard Dawkins and Thomas certainly has a very different writing style than Dawkins. It was great though. Some great ideas were expressed. It did feel very tangental at times, but I was ok with that. The part on Transcendental Metaworry was pretty hilarious. The current state of health, cloning, and other topics were covered that gave me some new perspectives which I appreciated.
• 
  Cindy Sikkema

  This book is aaaahhhhhmazing! So amazing, in fact, that if I were Queen of the World I would make it required reading for the entire planet.
  
  It's filled with brilliant, slightly off kilter observations about all kinds of things, most of which circle back to the human experience. I'd quote some of it here, but it's better to get into Dr. Thomas' head and splash around a little -- an undeniably refreshing experience.
  
  Read it and I doubt you'll come away with any less than one (or two hundred) AHA! moments.
• 
  Max

  Lewis’ second book was a bit of a letdown after reading his first, The Lives of a Cell. That book had a central theme - the cell as a model for society – and some fascinating ideas flowed from the model. Some are shared in my GR review of Lives. The Medusa and the Snail is an odd and end collection of mundane essays about medical practice, etymology, and random aspects of society. You may want to skip this one, but do read The Lives of a Cell.
• 
  Brian Switek

  Ah, a book from a time when science writers composed beautiful essays that respected the intelligence of the reader. The Medusa and the Snail is a wandering exploration of our nature that is fully at home with the questions that drive discovery, science, and our struggle to come to terms with ourselves. It's so comfortable a chat that the implications of the last page and a half sneak up on you, yet the thread was there all along. I should have read this earlier, but I'm glad I read it now.
• 
  Kathy

  This is a thoroughly pleasant little book, a compilation of short, simple, thoughtful essays about a random collection of topics by a physician whose interests are centered on biology but range more widely and quite articulately. With that excessively long but grammatically correct sentence, I will stop.
• 
  Heather Denkmire

  What a lovely little book. I don't know why it feels little to me; the subjects are pithy and the thoughts are big. I suppose it's how he made everything to basic and simple. I especially liked his sense of humor. (Paraphrasing:) "Consider highly complex systems such as a dense urban center or a hamster."
• 
  Jake Berlin

  just as delightful as thomas's classic "the lives of a cell". as always, some chapters will thrill you more than others, but there's always plenty for everyone -- not to mention just "plenty"; rarely has such a short book packed so many ideas into it. and thomas's writing is as brilliant and lovely on the ear as ever. "on punctuation" is a fun little romp that any writing nerd would enjoy.
• 
  Ross

  For those with an interest in nature and interesting musing
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  Elise

  Lewis Thomas has a way of making science understandable and attractive to the "lay" scientist. Barring his evolutionary worldview, he is spot on.
• 
  Jane

  This is a book that I will cherish. If asked what book I'd choose if I were in isolation The Medusa and the Snail would be a fierce contender for MVP.
• 
  Sam Motes

  An interesting collection of thoughts by a prominent biologist on a diverse set of topics. His since of humor makes this an engaging read.