The Man Who Touched His Own Heart: True Tales of Science, Surgery, and Mystery
by Rob Dunn; c.2015, Little, Brown; $27.00 / $30.00 Canada; 384 pages
Last weekend, you almost ran yourself ragged.
Even just thinking about the work you did makes you tired. Inside tasks, outside chores, errands and repairs; In the end, you were beat. Finished, and in need of a rest - but doing so completely would mean the end of you. Find out more in The Man Who Touched His Own Heart by Rob Dunn.
Long ago, before there were hospitals and physicians to staff them, doctors operated under the assumption that the heart was the seat of emotion. Aristotle believed the brain was “nothing more than mucus,” that the heart was where thoughts originated. Hearts were mostly “untouchable,” and only observed when a patient was dead.
All that changed in the summer of 1893 when an African American doctor had no other choice but to do the unthinkable.
Dr. Daniel Hale Williams founded Provident Hospital and Training Association in Chicago specifically because of racial issues and lack of care for black patients. On the evening of July 9, an express-man was brought in with a knife wound that initially looked superficial but had, in fact, penetrated all the way into the heart. It was a “remarkably common” wound, and most people died of it. Williams, however, cut into his patient’s chest, repaired a hole in the man’s pericardium, and saved his life.
When he performed his feat, Williams was not without knowledge of the heart. In ancient times, Galen studied gladiators and their heartbeats. Leonardo da Vinci reportedly did autopsies to aid in his study of the human body, as did others a few decades later. By the early 1800s, scientists even understood circulation.
A cigar chomping, heavy drinker figured out how to thread a catheter into the heart by experimenting on himself, for which he won a Nobel Prize. A World War II volunteer crafted the heart-lung machine, an inventor created the first pacemaker, and hundreds of dogs died in the quest for transplant knowledge.
And what happens next?
Research. Says Dunn,” We know far less about hearts than doctors, scientists, and everyone else thinks.”
You hear about hearts on the radio. Hearts are in everyday conversation, playing cards, and slogans. But what do you know about them? Plenty, after you’ve finished reading this book.
But The Man Who Touched His Own Heart is much more than a story of our tickers. Author Rob Dunn also touches upon ancient history, medical history, philosophy, literature, and culture. Readers get a brief (but thorough) look at how we know what we know, how we can keep our hearts healthy, ways to live longer despite that science thinks we have a finite number of years in us, and what’s on the horizon. That makes a lively, sometimes humorous, and very helpful book to read.
Having a basic knowledge of science will go a long way, but I otherwise think The Man Who Touched His Own Heart can be enjoyed by just about anybody. If you’re curious about what makes you tick, this book can’t be beat.