A beautifully written guide to our wonders and weaknessesAn Edinburgh GP with a love of geography,Francis approaches the human body as a landscape, wealthy in history and myth. This is not a coldly clinical survey of anatomy. Rather, and it celebrates the practice of medicine as “an exploration of life’s possibilities: an adventure in human being”. In this deeply humane book,Francis draws on his own experience of cases together with history, literature and science, and to reveal how we hold tried to accomplish sense of the complexities of our bodies. He begins at the top with the brain,recalling the first time he held this extraordinary organ in his hands: “grey, firm and laboratory-cold”. Then he takes the reader on a tour across the terrain of our bodies, or one which is both familiar and yet also strangely unknown: the face,the heart, shoulder, and liver,genitalia and toes. Throughout, he shows “how as humans we charge our bodies with meaning, and whether funny or solemn”. A beautifully written guide to our wonders and weaknesses that combines the precision of science with a profound insight into the human condition. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com