Lewis Thomas était un médecin, poète et essayiste réputé pour sa prose perspicace et poétique. Son écriture utilise fréquemment l'étymologie comme point de départ pour explorer les liens entre les idées et les concepts. Thomas s'est penché sur les implications culturelles des découvertes scientifiques et la conscience écologique croissante, reflétant souvent ses intérêts éclectiques et son style exceptionnel. Son œuvre résonne auprès des lecteurs par sa sagesse intemporelle et son récit captivant.
Focusing on molecular biology and cancer research, this book vividly depicts the lives of exceptional young scientists navigating the challenges and triumphs of their field. It delves into the complexities of human cells and the genetic factors influencing cancer, offering a compelling look at the scientific process. Through rich storytelling, it captures both the rewards and setbacks inherent in the pursuit of knowledge, making it an engaging exploration of modern science.
Focusing on the theme of healing through prayer, this guide by pastor Thomas Lewis provides spiritual resources for individuals grappling with depression. Drawing from his own experiences, Lewis encourages readers to engage with the Psalms as a source of hope and comfort. He aims to offer solace and support, likening his guidance to finding "a cup of cold water in parched" times, making it a valuable resource for those in need of spiritual rejuvenation.
Elegant, suggestive, and clarifying, Lewis Thomas's profoundly humane vision explores the world around us and examines the complex interdependence of all things. Extending beyond the usual limitations of biological science and into a vast and wondrous world of hidden relationships, this provocative book explores in personal, poetic essays to topics such as computers, germs, language, music, death, insects, and medicine. Lewis Thomas writes, "Once you have become permanently startled, as I am, by the realization that we are a social species, you tend to keep an eye out for the pieces of evidence that this is, by and large, good for us."
The medusa is a tiny jellfish that lives on the ventral surface of a sea slug found in the Bay of Naples. Readers will find themselves caught up in the fate of the medusa and the snail as a metaphor for eternal issues of life and death as Lewis Thomas further extends the exploration of a man and his world begun in "The Lives of a Cell." Among the treasures in this magnificent book are essays on the human genius for making mistakes, on disease and natural death, on cloning, on warts, and on Montaigne, as well as an assessment of medical science and health care. In these essays and others, Thomas once again conveys his observations of the scientific world in prose marked by wonder and wit.
This original and lucid account of the complexities of love and its essential role in human well-being draws on the latest scientific research. Three eminent psychiatrists tackle the difficult task of reconciling what artists and thinkers have known for thousands of years about the human heart with what has only recently been learned about the primitive functions of the human brain.A General Theory of Love demonstrates that our nervous systems are not self-contained: from earliest childhood, our brains actually link with those of the people close to us, in a silent rhythm that alters the very structure of our brains, establishes life-long emotional patterns, and makes us, in large part, who we are. Explaining how relationships function, how parents shape their child’s developing self, how psychotherapy really works, and how our society dangerously flouts essential emotional laws, this is a work of rare passion and eloquence that will forever change the way you think about human intimacy.
This magnificent collection of essays by scientist and National Book Award-winning writer Lewis Thomas remains startlingly relevant for today’s world. Luminous, witty, and provocative, the essays address such topics as “The Attic of the Brain,” “Falsity and Failure,” “Altruism,” and the effects the federal government’s virtual abandonment of support for basic scientific research will have on medicine and science.Profoundly and powerfully, Thomas questions the folly of nuclear weaponry, showing that the brainpower and money spent on this endeavor are needed much more urgently for the basic science we have abandoned—and that even medicine’s most advanced procedures would be useless or insufficient in the face of the smallest nuclear detonation. And in the title essay, he addresses himself with terrifying poignancy to the question of what it is like to be young in the nuclear age.“If Wordsworth had gone to medical school, he might have produced something very like the essays of Lewis Thomas.”— TIME“No one better exemplifies what modern medicine can be than Lewis Thomas.”— The New York Times Book Review
Exploring major contemporary issues like AIDS, drug abuse, and aging, the author delves into evolutionary biology and the development of language with keen insight. He reflects on the therapeutic aspects of medicine, showcasing his passion for the profession while raising thought-provoking questions. This work combines personal narrative with scientific inquiry, offering a unique perspective on the complexities of modern life and health.
This sermon delivers a message of Christian hope and fearlessness in the face of death, inspired by the life and passing of Mrs. Blackett of Highbury Place. Thomas Lewis speaks to the spiritual strength required to confront the inevitability of death, and offers guidance on how to face our own mortality with faith and courage.