Science - The Poetry of Reality - Part II
The Human body - A most magnificent but mysterious machine
I am doing a series on Books on Science which I have enjoyed reading.After covering Cryptography in the last edition (link here), today’s newsletter is about a book from the field of Biology.
The Body: A guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson
There are some writers I respect but cannot read a single page without getting distracted.Tolstoy and Faulkner fall into this category. There are others who I enjoy reading a lot but stop thinking about the moment I finish their book. J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series comes to mind here. Then, there are the ones who wow you with their craft , who can make time disappear and you experience that blissful feeling of inhabiting a world different from yours….
Bill Bryson does not fit into any of the above categories.
Bryson, rather, is a kind of writer whom you wished you knew personally. He is like that one interesting person in a party — narrating scarily believable tales but with a sense of humour which has everyone in fits of laughter. His books make me laugh every time without fail, no matter what the topic.The witticisms begin even before you read the first page — in the title itself.Only Bryson can think of following ‘The Body’ with ‘A guide for occupants’!
Though he is most well-known for his book on Science History ‘The Short History of Nearly Everything,' he has written a number of books on travel - about Europe, The UK and the US, Australia, etc., bringing a fresh and interesting perspective which informs as well as entertains. He has this unique ability to breathe life into ostensibly boring topics. I have already recommended his book ‘At Home : A Short History of Private Life’ about the history of the rooms in a typical house in my earlier edition of the newsletter on non-fiction books ( link here ).
In ‘The Body….’ , which is his latest book, Bryson turns his attention onto the human body, with great success. He writes about each part of the body , starting from the top — the brain, head, mouth, throat — downwards till he reaches the feet. But the writing is not just plain description of function and importance of each part.It takes some interesting detours along the way, such as exploring how microbes came to be an integral part of the human body, what sleep is and how it affects us, human diseases and the discovery of medicines etc. You learn a lot about the body but you also learn a lot about doctors, scientists and ( willing and unwilling ) patients who shaped the world of human biology through the centuries. And you never get the feeling that you are reading a non-fiction book.
Consider these opening lines from the chapter on The Head:
We all know that you can’t live without your head, but for how long exactly is a question that received a lot of attention in the late Eighteenth century.It was a good time to wonder because the French Revolution gave inquiring minds a steady supply of freshly lopped heads to examine…
And after discussing how long the brain can function in a cut-off head without freshly oxygenated blood, a little later in the same paragraph, he adds:
As Frances Larson notes in her fascinating history of decapitation , Severed, Mary, Queen of Scots, needed three hearty whacks before her head hit the basket, and hers was a comparatively delicate neck.
I don’t think a doctor writing about the human body would even remotely consider referencing a book on the history of decapitation like Bryson has done here. A refreshing aspect of Bryson’s writing is his ability to make information about disparate body parts relevant to the reader by keeping the references as current as possible.This excerpt about bones below is a good example:
We tend to think of our bones as inert bits of scaffolding, but they are living tissue too. They grower bigger with exercise and use just as muscles do. The bone in a professional tennis player's serving arm may be 30 per cent thicker than in his other arm,' Margy Pratten told me, and cited Rafael Nadal as an example.
I am sure that anybody watching Nadal on TV will ever fail to notice his mismatched arms again.
Another great service that Bryson does the reader is to dispel a lot of common myths about the human body. Myths such as the belief that the heart is the seat of our emotions ( it is not — it is just the most single minded organ in the body with only one job -to pump blood and to keep us alive ), Humans are the only primates with an opposable thumbs ( Not true — most primates including Chimpanzees have opposable thumbs. It is how we humans use it that makes the difference ), If you are a male and your father is bald you will be too ( baldness in men is actually inherited from the mother’s side) and many such interesting facts. Along the way you also encounter stories of scientists stealing credit from the actual discoverers and inventors - a sobering reminder that pettiness and genius are not always mutually exclusive. Science is, sadly, not just about standing on the shoulders of giants but also sometimes about selfishness and the hiding of inconveinent truths.
The pandemic has led many of us to think about our life and bodies, sometimes in a fearful or a negative manner. But this book is evidence that this contemplation need not always be pessimistic.Yes, we as a species are vulnerable to newer kinds of diseases.But at the same time, the human body is also remarkably resilient and constantly learning how to cope with new threats.This is the message that I took away from this book.
If you are someone who lost touch with Biology after school and want to reconnect with the most current understanding about the human body — this book is for you.Bryson’s humourous weaving together of Biology, History and quirky personalities propels you to turn page after page. Forget the crime fiction novel. Pick this book up.