Lewis Thomas

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Lewis Thomas (born November 25, 1913 in Flushing , Queens , New York City , † December 3, 1993 in Manhattan ) was an American physician (experimental pathology , immunology ) and essayist.

Life

Thomas, son of a general practitioner, studied medicine at Princeton University and from 1933 at Harvard Medical School . As a student, he wrote poetry that appeared in Harpers Bazaar, Atlantic Monthly, and the Saturday Evening Post. He completed his internship at Boston City Hospital and his specialist training in neurology at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. He initially conducted research at Thorndike Memorial Laboratories, was in medical research in the Pacific for the United States Navy during World War II, and did research in pediatrics and rheumatic fever at Johns Hopkins University after the war . From 1948 he was at Tulane University Medical School and did research on immunology and microbiology, was from 1950 at the University of Minnesota , where he continued to study rheumatic fever, and in 1954 was director of pathology at New York University Medical School. For more than fifteen years he devoted himself to clinical research in immunology and was also chief physician at Bellevue Hospital. He became dean of New York University School of Medicine and moved to Yale University in 1972 , where he also became dean of the medical faculty and headed the pathology department. His research area at that time was diseases caused by mycoplasma . From 1973 he was President of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Institute . Lewis Thomas died of Waldenström's disease .

Thomas is known for popular scientific essays in the New England Journal of Medicine , which he wrote for over ten years from 1971 in a separate column (Notes of a Biology Watcher) and published in three edited volumes. One of them, The Lives of a cell: notes of a biology watcher from 1974, received the National Book Award in the categories Arts and Letters and Science ; his band The Medusa and the Snail also won a National Book Award. The subjects of his essays reflected his broad interests and knowledge, but he was particularly interested in the changes in medicine in the 20th century. Recurring topics were also ecological effects and the interaction between different areas of knowledge. They were praised for their literary style and also showed his etymological interest. In addition to the New England Journal of Medicine, essays have appeared in Discover and the New York Review of Books .

Thomas also wrote an autobiography and a book on etymology .

The Lewis Thomas Prize of Rockefeller University is awarded annually for scientific prose. In 1986 the Lewis Thomas Laboratory in Princeton was named after him.

He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1972), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1961), the American Philosophical Society (1976). and the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1984). In 1973 Thomas gave the George M. Kober Lecture , in 1983 he received the George M. Kober Medal .

Fonts

  • The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher , Viking Press 1974, Penguin Books 1995
  • The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher , viking Press 1979, Penguin Books 1995
  • Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony , Viking Press 1983, Penguin Books 1995
  • The Youngest Science: Notes of a Medicine-Watcher , Viking Press 1983, Penguin Books 1995
  • Et Cetera, Et Cetera: Notes of a Word-Watcher , Little Brown & Co 1990
  • The Fragile Species , Scribner 1992, Simon and Schuster 1996
  • Could I ask you something? , 1985 (poems)

literature

  • Jeremy Bernstein : Lewis Thomas: Life of a Biology Watcher , in Experiencing Science: Profiles in Discovery , New York: Basic Books, 1978, pp. 163-201.
  • David Hellerstein: The Muse of Medicine , Esquire, March 1984, 72-77.

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ Each had around 1000 words and fit on one page. It wasn't paid for, but it wasn't edited either. The model for him were the essays by Montaigne.
  2. ^ Member History: Lewis Thomas. American Philosophical Society, accessed December 6, 2018 .
  3. ^ Members: Lewis Thomas. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 29, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Thomas, Lewis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American medic and essayist
DATE OF BIRTH November 25, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Flushing
DATE OF DEATH 3rd December 1993
Place of death Manhattan