Memoir of a Thinking Radish  (English, Paperback, Medawar P. B.)

The self-deprecating image of man - an amalgam of Pascal's "thinking reed" and Falstaff's "forked radish" - that provides a title for Peter Medawar's autobiography stems from his belief that the professional lives of scientists usually make dull reading. Sir Peter Medawar is a scientist of world renown, a member of the Royal Society and a Fellow of the British Academy. He won a Nobel Prize in 1960 for work that formed the basis of modern immunology and organ transplantation. He also wrote a series of essays: "Pluto's Republic", and two books: "Advice to a young scientist" and "The limits of science". He was awarded the order of merit in 1981. He describes this autobiography, loosely modelled on Coleridge's "Biographia Literaria", as "a book of opinions which my life may be regarded as a pretext for holding". He covers his early years in Rio de Janeiro, Oxford in the 1930s, illness and recovery and his work in a wide variety of institutions around the world.