Birth Days: A Nurse-Midwife's Account Book

"If Montaigne had possessed a deep knowledge of twentieth-century biology, he would have been Lewis Thomas."

So quoted Edward O. Lewis on the back cover of this paperback. Now I'm beginning to feel that I'm about to commence upon another magical mystery tour as I've never heard of this individual before. According to the Wikipedia, and I hope the following information is correct:

"Edward O. Wilson is an American biologist, researcher (sociobiology, biodiversity), theorist (consilience, biophilia), naturalist (conservationist) and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants, on which he is considered to be the world's leading authority".

I've never come across an ant specialist before. Surely that must be rather boring after a while?

I have also never heard of Lewis Thomas, who was a doctor, a poet, and an essayist among other things but the title intrigued me and as I like anything to do with biology that was enough to spark my interest. But what could the "medusa", a jellyfish, possibly have in common with a "snail" and what kind of snail is this? Well I was soon to be enlightened. But is the author playing games here because it's a question of a symbiotic, well indirectly as not everything is shared, relationship between a jelly fish and a nudibranch, in other words your common sea slug. But this is no ordinary slug, oh no, it's a member of Nudibranchia, a group of soft-bodied, marine gastropod mollusks which shed their shell after their larval stage and this all happens in the Bay of Naples.

This is a delightful book with a collection of relatively short essays covering so many subjects and they are all rather witty even when dealing with somewhat sad issues such as death. But Mr Thomas' take on the latter is delightful. We have a physician here but with eclectic tastes as is apparent throughout the different essays in the book. In one it all happens in the Tucson Zoo with the beavers, otters and ants (now remember the ants!); others on warts, meddling, committees, premedical curriculum, medical lessons from history, cloning, etc. I preferred the essay on the medusa and the snail with a close second in a wonderful essay on why Montaigne is not a bore. That particular essay was so witty. Also I began to wonder why Wilson had given his particular quote on Montaigne. It appeared extraneous to the book but it certainly wasn't.

I've never really thought of bacteria in a positive way although I've always thought that they are pretty deadly and they are running all over our body (admittedly we can't see them and that's a relief) and also within but now I've found out that they are essential for our life on earth:

"Without bacteria for starters, we would never have had enough oxygen to go around, nor could we have found and fixed the nitrogen for making enzymes, nor could we recycle the solid matter of life for new generations."

Thomas feels that we are a species still at the learning stage, fumbling around with our language and thought processes and yet, we're not that bad really because we have music and we have the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, so that cannot be all bad.

There's a wonderful description on the evolution of medicine and the strange practices that were carried on. There's an interesting concept at the beginning of the 20th century, "the theory of autointoxication, evolved, and a large part of therapy was directed at emptying the large intestine and keeping it empty." I wonder how they managed to achieve that.

It must be remembered that this book was published in 1974 and science is viewed so differently nowadays, as it has naturally evolved so much.

He also believes that medicine has now returned to magic and changes in health fads, and running has now acquired the medicinal value formerly attributed to rare herbs from Indonesia. Why Indonesia?

As for DNA, yes it has been scientifically proven but the author still believes we are here by chance.

In conclusion, this is a thought-provoking book, with amusing turns of phrase but at the same time a delight to read; and also to be taken down from the shelf to be read in the future. I'm so pleased that I discovered it. The author's whole book as a biology watcher is fascinating and makes me envious that I never worked in this area. It's never too late I guess…