Dr. Lewis Thomas The Medusa And The Snail

The book, The Medusa and the Snail, written by the Dr. Lewis Thomas, presents the idea that the human experience is unique and complicated while simultaneously reminding humans they are still creatures of the earth. The book is made up of over a dozen separate essays that bring a fresh perspective on typically mundane human experiences like language, board meetings, trips to the zoo, birth etc. The writer in one essay can relate biological concepts like mutation and pollution with the possibility of fish growing legs and crawl up fire escapes, then in a next essay will explain how he began to understand the necessity of death. Some essays being, On Natural Death, On Magic in Medicine, and The Wonderful Mistake, highlight Dr. Lewis Thomas’s impressive writing ability that draws the reader into every obscure the topic.

Lewis Thomas ironically breathes life into the glum topic of death by further explaining the process is necessary for life. In doing, so The physician acknowledges society's obsession with the unavoidable process of life and how every biotic organism will encounter it. To help the reader understand what he is trying to convey the reader uses an anecdote where he explains the observation of a feline with a limp mouse in its jaws. Consequently, the reader feels sympathy for the gruesome demise of the mouse, assuming the creature died in unimaginable pain. After recalling this episode the physician goes into depth describing how the body of the mouse is built to release chemicals that block pain receptors and the assumed feeling of death. The anecdote is used as a tool for the reader to understand how death is necessary for all life on earth; the cat is a typical creature motivated by innate instincts, demonstrating one component of a