Mysteries Within : A Surgeon Explores Myth, Medicine, and the Human Body

by Nuland, Sherwin B.

• ISBN13: 9780684854861
• ISBN10: 0684854864
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-02-01
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Summary

Dr. Sherwin Nuland, author of the National Book Award-winning "How We Die," once again combines knowledge, compassion, and elegance of expression to shed light on the workings of our bodies from the perspective of a surgeon. Dr. Nuland recounts age-old legends about the functions and "personalities" of the body's organs and, in riveting vignettes of the surgery he has performed, he describes the connections between myth and reality. A brilliant blend of science and folklore, "The Mysteries Within" reveals the enigmas not only of the body but also of the human imagination.

Author Biography

Sherwin B. Nuland, M.D., F.A.C.S., is clinical professor of surgery at Yale School of Medicine, where he has taught since 1962. He is the author of several previous books, among them How We Die, a national best-seller that has been translated into sixteen languages. How We Die won the National Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics' Circle Award. More recently he wrote The Wisdom of the Body (published in paperback as How We Live). Dr. Nuland lives in Connecticut.

Table of Contents

Introduction	15	(8)
The Stomach: A Little Boy's Big Secret	23	(21)
The Stomach: Soul, Spirit, and Centrality	44	(21)
The Stomach: Ghostly Gases, Mystical Acids	65	(19)
The Liver: Dumb Luck and the Surgeon	84	(25)
The Liver: Source of Life	109	(26)
The Spleen: Organ of Mystery, Organ of Melancholy	135	(28)
The Heart: Cracking the Valve	163	(20)
The Heart: The First and Last Dying	183	(24)
The Uterus: The Hysterical Passion	207	(25)
Reproduction: Babies in Boxes	232	(21)
Epilogue	253	(22)
Index	275