Lewis Thomas

Lewis Thomas, "The Lives of a Cell"

Lewis Thomas (1913-1993) was born in Flushing, New York and earned a B.S. from Princeton University in 1933 and an M.D. from Harvard University in 1937. He taught and practiced medicine, and was an administrator at such places as the Rockefeller Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, and served as president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Thomas's books include two National Book Award winners: The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974) and The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (1979); as well as Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony (1983) and The Fragile Species (1992). Thomas also contributed to periodicals such as the New York Times and Foreign Affairs. This essay, which sees our whole ecosystem in a single cell, was first published in 1971 in The New England Journal of Medicine and was reprinted in The Lives of a Cell.

CONTENT

1. What trouble with "Modern Man" does Thomas allude to in his opening?
2. Describe the relationship between chloroplasts and green plants.
3. Define the word symbiont.
4. Discuss the illusion the author describes in the second paragraph.
5. What are mitochondria? What do they do? Name some of the "other little animals" we have in our cells.
6. Describe the slightly atypical view of viruses the author presents. What makes his view atypical?

STRATEGY AND STYLE

1. Three times Thomas starts a paragraph with the word item in italics. Explain how this rhetorical device functions. Do you find it effective?
2. Find two comparisons made to the earth in the first paragraph, and one in the last. What mental images do they evoke? How do they change from the introduction to the conclusion? What work do they do to explain the author's views of the earth?
3. How would you characterize this essay in terms of rhetorical mode? Does the author structure it by means of showing cause and effect, by providing examples, by illustrating comparisons and contrasts, or by some other means? Support your answer with specifics from the essay.

1. How comfortable are you reading about science? How about biology in particular? How did your comfort level in this area effect your reading here?
2. What do you think about when you consider the differences between humans and other animals? Did any of these thoughts go through your head during your reading? Are you thinking of any parts of the reading right now?

SUGGESTIONS FOR SUSTAINED WRITING

1. William S. Burroughs once wrote, "Language is a virus from outer space." Review your answer to Content question f.) above, and write an essay speculating about how Thomas might have responded to that statement. Be sure to discuss human beings' special relationship to language and the "outer space" part in light of Thomas's views of the earth.
2. Thomas writes, "Man is embedded in nature," but that we sometimes do our best to avoid thinking about that proposition. Form that idea into a thesis for an essay, and write about nature's ways of reminding us of our relationship to it, and why we sometimes want to deny that relationship.

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

Review your answer to Content question e.) above and do some research about centrioles and basal bodies. What do they do? How did your research about these organisms enhance your understanding of paragraph five?

WEB CONNECTION

Thomas's career and life were an admirable blending of art and science. Interested in pursuing this blend further? This page shows the result of searching for these terms using the search engine at Google.com, and will give you plenty of places to start your research.

LINKS

Biographical

This is an excerpt of a review by Stephen Jay Gould of Thomas's autobiography, The Youngest Science: Notes of a Medicine Watcher. There's a link to get the rest of the review on this page. Can you think of another way to get the full article?

Here is a no-frills biography of Thomas from The Columbia Encyclopedia.

This biographical sketch of Thomas, written by an M.D., also has a photo of Thomas and one of Thomas's poems.

Bibliographical

In 1992 Thomas conducted this interview with BookPage, following the publication of his collection of essays The Fragile Species.

Ready for a bit of conflict? Read this reply by a Harvard professor to a New York Review of Books piece by Thomas, and Thomas's counter-reply. Subject: The history of tuberculosis. How can you characterize Thomas's argument here?

Looking for a quotation by Thomas for a research paper? Here's a great one about doctors and healing.

Cultural

This page contains Thomas's citation for his 1981 National Book Award. Look over the other names on the page. Whose do you recognize? How would you go about learning more about them?

Did you know that Thomas has a prize named after him? Read more about it in this press release from Rockefeller University.

Thomas was the head of a world-famous cancer treatment center. Do you remember which one it was? Click here to refresh your memory, and find out more about this center.