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Lewis Thomas

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Lewis Thomas

Lewis Thomas (1913-1993). Courtesy GoodReads.

Lewis Thomas
Born November 25, 1913(1913-Template:MONTHNUMBER-25)
Flushing, New York
Died December 3, 1993(1993-Template:MONTHNUMBER-03) (aged 80)
Nationality United States American
Fields biology, science writer, academic administration]]
Institutions Tulane University School of Medicine (researcher)
Alma mater Princeton University, Harvard Medical School
Notable awards National Book Award (3)

Lewis Thomas (November 25, 1913 - December 3, 1993) was an American poet, physician, etymologist, essayist, administrator, educator, policy advisor, and researcher.

Life[]

Thomas was born in Flushing, New York.

He attended Princeton University and Harvard Medical School.

His formative years as an independent medical researcher were at Tulane University School of Medicine.

He became Dean of Yale Medical School and New York University School of Medicine, and President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute.

He was invited to write regular essays in the New England Journal of Medicine. Collections of essays originally published in NEJM and elsewhere included The Medusa and the Snail and Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony.

Writing[]

Thomas's autobiography, The Youngest Science: Notes of a medicine watcher, is a record of a century of medicine and the changes which occurred in it. He has also published a book on entomology entitled Et Cetera, Et Cetera, and numerous scientific papers and poems.

Many of his essays discuss relationships among ideas or concepts using entomology as a starting point. Others concern the cultural implications of scientific discoveries and the growing awareness of ecology. In his essay on Mahler's Ninth Symphony, Thomas addresses the anxieties produced by the development of nuclear weapons.[1] Thomas is often quoted, given his notably eclectic interests and superlative prose style.

Recognition[]

Thomas's essay collection, The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a biology watcher (1974), shared National Book Awards in 2 categories, Arts and Letters and The Sciences.[2] (He also won a Christopher Award for that book.)

In its 1st paperback edition, The Medusa and the Snail won the 1981 National Book Award for paperback Science.[3] (From 1980 to 1983 in National Book Awards history there were dual hardcover and paperback awards in most categories, and multiple nonfiction subcategories. Most of the paperback award-winners were reprints, including this one.)

The Lewis Thomas Prize is awarded annually by The Rockefeller University to a scientist for artistic achievement.

Publications[]

Poetry[]

  • Could I Ask You Something? New York: Library Fellows of the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1985.

Non-fiction[]

  • The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a biology watcher. New York: Viking, 1974.
  • The Medusa and the Snail: More notes of a biology watcher. New York: Viking, 1979.
  • On the Usefulness of Biology. Enstone, UK: Ditchley Foundation, 1980.
  • The Youngest Science: Notes of a medicine-watcher. New York: Viking, 1983.
  • Late-Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony. New York: Viking Press, 1983.
  • The Lasker Awards: Four decades of scientific medical progress (with Arthur Davis Lasker). New York: Raven Press, 1986.
  • Quartet: Essays by Lewis Thomas, etchings by Joseph Goldyne. New York: New York Academy of Sciences / San Francisco: Pacific Editions, 1987.
  • The Wonderful Mistake: Notes of a biology watcher (incorporating the Lives of a cell and the Medusa and the snail). Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press. 1988.
  • Et Cetera Et Cetera: Notes of a word watcher. New York: Little, Brown, 1990.
  • A Long Line of Cells: Collected essays. New York: Book of the Month, 1990.
  • The Fragile Species. New York: Scribner / Toronto & New York: Maxwell Macmillan, 1992.


Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[4]

See also=[]

References[]

  1. ↑ Lewis Thomas: Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony
  2. ↑ "National Book Awards – 1975". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-05.
    (With acceptance speech by Thomas.)
  3. ↑ "National Book Awards – 1981". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-05.
  4. ↑ Search results = au:Lewis Thomas 1913-1993, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Mar. 22, 2015.

External links[]

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