Medical knowledge and technical savvy are biodegradable. The sort of medicine that was practiced in Boston or New York or Atlanta fifty years ago would be as strange to a medical student or intern today as the ceremonial dance of a !Kung San tribe would seem to a rock festival audience in Hackensack.

(He also won a Christopher Award for that book. He also publiLewis Thomasd a book on entomology entitled Et Cetera Et Cetera poems and numerous scientific papers. In its first paperback edition The Medusa and the Snail won another National Book Award in Science.

Lewis Thomas (November 25 1913 – December 3 1993) was a physician poet etymologist essayist administrator educator policy advisor and researcher. (He also won a Christopher Award for that book. The Lewis Thomas Prize is awarded annually by The Rockefeller University to a scientist for artistic achievement.