Memoir of a thinking radish - P. B Medawar

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.