Few twentieth-century physicians bridged the gap between science and literature as well as Lewis Thomas, who spent most of his illustrious medical career as a researcher and administrator. The short essays he began writing "for fun" in 1971 established him as a serious author who combined his knowledge and insights into science, especially microbiology and immunology, with meditative reflections on nature and the human body in a style widely recognized as clear, graceful, and witty.

Lewis Thomas was born on 25 November 1913 in Flushing, New York, to Joseph Simon Thomas, a family physician and surgeon, and Grace Emma Peck Thomas, a nurse. Lewis Thomas was fascinated by his father's profession, and it became a baseline for his later understanding of the dramatic changes--not always good ones in his opinion--in the practice of medicine during the twentieth century. At fifteen he entered Princeton University, where he was an average student. While...