Lewis Thomas

The Medusa and the Snail

Weve never been so self-conscious about our selves as we seem to be these days. The popular magazines are filled with advice on things to do with a self: how to find it, identify it, nurture it, p...

STUDIES ON A NON-HEMOLYTIC STREPTOCOCCUS ISOLATED FROM THE RESPIRATORY TRACT OF HUMAN BEINGS

The results of studies on the immunological relationship between streptococcus MG and Streptococcus salivarius type I are described. Evidence is presented to show that Streptococcus salivarius type I, like streptococcus MG, possesses a capsular polysaccharide antigen. Similarities in the capsular polysaccharides of these two different species of non-hemolytic streptococci appear to be responsible for their immunological relationship.

MENINGOCOCCIC INFECTIONS; REPORT OF 43 CASES OF MENINGOCOCCIC MENINGITIS AND 8 CASES OF MENINGOCOCCEMIA

Excerpt Recent reports indicate that there has been a marked increase in the incidence of cerebrospinal fever in Great Britain since the outbreak of the present war and similar increases have been ...

Dying as failure.

: With the changes over the past forty years in the way people die and in the ways they are cared for when ill, the attitudes toward death have changed. When death seemed a metaphysical event, it commanded a kind of respect. Today, with the process of dying protracted--sometimes for years--it seems an evidence of failure.

The hazards of science

The codeword for criticism of science and scientists these days is hubris. Once youve said that word, youve said it all; it sums up, in a word, all of todays apprehensions and misgivings in the ...

The Deacon's Masterpiece

THE brightest and most optimistic of my presentiments about the future of human health always seems to arouse a curious mixture of resentment and dismay among some very intelligent listeners. It is as though Id said something bad about the future. Actually, all I claim, partly on faith and partly from spotty but unmistakable bits of evidence out of the past century of biomedical science, is that mankind will someday be able to think his way around the finite list of major diseases that now close off life prematurely or cause prolonged incapacitation and pain. In short, we will someday .xa0.xa0.

Commentary: The Future Impact of Science and Technology on Medicine

It is said that we are spending this year something like

The Music of This Sphere

85 billion on health in this country. Last year the figure was

Death in the Open

70 billion; the year before around 60. Nobody can vouch with certainty for the accuracy of these figures, nor even count up all the things the dollars are presumably buying. But no matter; they are socking great sums, enough to warrant the term Health Industry for the whole enterprise. With an investment of this size, much of it representing public funds, it is surprising that there is so little analytical information concerning the enterprise; there is really no such thing as a Health Policy for the country in the sense that the term Policy is used for other major public ventures and certainly nothing like real Policy Planning. There is only an intense public anxiety that it is costing much too much money and we cannot afford to put in more; also, there is a spreading doubt that we are getting anything like our moneys worth.

The Tucson zoo.

IT is one of our problems that as we become crowded together, the sounds we make to each other, in our increasingly complex communication systems, become more random-sounding, accidental or inciden...