The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974) is collection of 29 essays written by Lewis Thomas for The New England Journal of Medicine between 1971 and 1973. Throughout his essays, Thomas touches on subjects as various as biology, anthropology, medicine, music (showing a particular affinity for Bach), etymology, mass communication, and computers. The pieces resonate with the underlying theme of the interconnected nature of Earth and all living things. Background Lewis Thomas was a physician, immunology researcher, dean, poet, etymologist, and essayist. He attended Princeton University followed by Harvard Medical School. He was a research fellow at the Thorndyke Memorial laboratories, and a researcher at Tulane University and University of Minnesota. He was the head of the pathology department at New York University Medical School for fifteen years as well as the chair for the Department of Medicine at Bellevue Hospital. He became the dean of the New York University Medical School and later of Yale School of Medicine. Thomas began writing a monthly essay “Notes of a Biology Watcher” in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1971 while he was at Yale. In 1973 he became the president of the Sloan-Kettering Institute in New York. Lewis Thomas published multiple books throughout his career, the first being The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher. In 1979 he published The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher. He wrote an autobiographical book in 1983, The Youngest Science: Notes of a Medicine-Watcher. Also in 1983 he published Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony followed by Could I Ask You Something? in 1985. In 1990 and 1992 Thomas published Et Cetera Et Cetera: Notes of a Word Watcher and The Fragile Species respectively. The most influential writer to Thomas's writing style is Michel de Montaigne. He is quoted as saying "I cannot imagine anyone reading Montaigne carefully, paying attention, concentrating on what he has to say, without smiling most of the time". Summary The Lives of a Cell This essay focuses on how connected humanity is to nature and how we must make strides to understand our role. Thomas argues that even our own bodies are not solely ours since the mitochondria and other organelles are descended from other organisms. He creates a metaphor of the Earth as a giant cell itself with humans just as one part of