The Body: A guide for occupants
Bill Bryson
★★★★★ 5/5
Non Fiction: Science, Human Biology
Fascinating! All that a Science book for the layperson should be
A magnificent read. The best non fiction book I’ve read this year (2020). Reminiscent in many ways of my fav 2019 book, Sapiens: both expansive journeys through their subject, narrated captivatingly through significant historical events, and left me feeling smarter than I was before starting the book, and ready for a body themed quiz. Jeopardy/Trivia anyone?
Outstanding coverage of the one subject we all surely care about
With a high school and/or science education, one might be tempted to dismiss a book covering the basics of the working of the human body. I too, was skeptical, but motivated by the high Goodreads score. And this book does not disappoint. While it might cover several things you already know, I guarantee you that unless you are a medical professional, (or perhaps even then), you will be enthralled by several things you didn’t know about human biology and the interesting stories and anecdotes behind those discoveries. And more than enthralled you will come away with great fascination for the amazing machines of unparalleled complexity we are, one that has been iterated on by evolution over many billions of years.
Delightful Stories
Mr. Bryson has a knack for presenting complicated subjects with a disarming and engaging writing style. But if this book was just facts about the body, I doubt I would have made it through the end. It would more likely have become a reference book on a shelf: to be read when seeking specific information. But Mr. Bryson interweaves explanations of our current knowledge of the body with stories of how we came upon this knowledge. And boy are those stories interesting—for scientists are ultimately all too human: sharing the same aspirations and failings as the rest of us. The stories also reveal how human knowledge is often circuitous in its progress, occasionally taking a few steps back before moving forward.
Stories such as that of Werner Frossmann who, at great unknown risk to himself injected a catheter to his heart just to see what would happen; or how the prevailing definition of death proved a hurdle to heart (and organ) transplants; the gory (pun intended) history of bloodletting as a medical treatment including Benjamin Rush, the prince of bleeders, who “was convinced he had saved a great many when in fact all he did was fail to kill them all”; the story of Henry Gray (of Gray’s Anatomy books) and his swindling of his master illustrator Henry Carver; and so on…
It’s these that make for half the brilliance of this book, the other half of course being Mr. Bryson’s ability to simplify complex topics by abstracting out just the right level of detail for the lay-person. And accompanied by the most fascinating facts. Some interesting ones that were new to me:
- The outermost layer of skin is made of dead cells – all that makes you lovely is deceased!
- The value of US plasma exports is greater than that of US airplanes!
- Your eyes have a third receptor besides rods and cones: one that solely detects brightness
- Menopause isn’t triggered by a woman exhausting her supply of eggs
- The O in blood group was originally intended to be 0 because it didn’t clump with the other groups.
Reading this book, I was also reminded of the last book on human biology I had read: Rose George’s Nine Pints, mainly because of the contrasting writing styles. For an inherently fascinating subject, Nine Pints was inexcusably tediously written.
Medical Science: celebrated, but also criticized
The book pays homage to the many revered as well as unsung heroes of modern medicine. But it makes it clear that when it comes to truly understanding how our bodies work, there is far more we don’t know than what we do understand today. Mr. Bryson acknowledges the shortcomings of modern medicine and the many vested interests often working against the interests of patients. He is also justifiably critical of healthcare in America: by far the most expensive in the world with little to show far compared to peers.
Among rich countries, America is at or near the bottom for virtually every measure for medical well being
Prescient:
In the chapter on diseases, he calls out Flu as the greatest disease risk to us now. This from one of the doctors is quite a prescient statement given the Covid-19 times we live in:
The reason we haven’t had another outbreak like the Spanish flu isn’t because we have been especially vigilant. It’s because we have been lucky
Must read for everyone except the hypochondriacs:
While it is a wondrous machine, things obviously do go wrong with the body. Mr Bryson gives diseases a lot of attention in the book. If you have an unhealthy anxiety about your health, you might want to skip this book, lest you come away like Jerome K. Jerome after reading a medical textbook (also quoted in the book) =)
I sat for a while, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever – read the symptoms – discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it – wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus’s Dance – found, as I expected, that I had that too, – began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically – read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright’s disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid’s knee.