Publisher's Synopsis
Very few of us know much about the machinery and workings of our bodies. In an era when most educated people are up-to-date on such questions as gene research, or the male contraceptive pill, the depth of familiarity with our own organs (their structure and function) is surprisingly thin. Where is your spleen? And what does it do? And so forth. Sherwin Nuland's book explains the basic equipment of our body and shows how the human organism constructs its own strategies for survival. But Nuland goes much further than conventional biology. In writing the book, he became preoccupied by a question: what is the human spirit, and how does the structure and functioning of our physicals body explain it? He argues that the human spirit is as inseparable from the body as the mind is inseperable from the brain and results from the adaptive biological mechanisms that protect our species and perpetuate our existence. Written with the warmth, wit and intelligence that distinguished HOW WE DIE, Nuland's new book will became essential book for anyone who wants to understand how life keeps going.
