The doctors of Sector General, human, alien (tentacled, elephantine, spidery) are accustomed to the unusual, regard the totally bizzare as merely another challenge. But the planet Meatball...

The denizens of this weird planet include wheelshaped rolling sentients without hearts, leeclike healers without brains, vast moving carpets of writhing flesh. Among them, a species which had somehow evolved a quasi-living organism that could change galactic medicine. If only Star Surgeon Conway and his polylimbed staff could find it, a needle in an organic haystack.
That required a

MAJOR OPERATION

Fixup novel