Departed Reflections

The book is very easy to read. Has a wonderfull narrative that gives very interesing facts, but more importantly the context for certain profound discoveries. Some information I thought worth highlighting include; the historical importance of Galen, the genius of Da Vinci even though most of his discoveries had to be rediscovered, Adreas Vesalius published work “on the fabric of the human body” which corrected many of Galen’s errors. Miguel Seveto, discovered that the blood was pumped to the lungs, and circulation and established the flow of blood before being burned at the stake by Calvin. Basic biology was also highlighted such as the fact that mitochondrra being the oxygen eaters in the cells (having evolved from oxygen utilizing cells that were enveloped by other cells). And, when oxygen was plentiful, large insects could develop, but when the O2 concentration declined, animals needed a way to move limited oxygen in their environment to their cells. the book also explores the different ways organism developed to utilize oxygen and (as they got larger) transport it to the cells. In regard to the modern history of the heart some notable figures include Werner Forssmann a german surgeon who was the first to stick a catheter into his heart. John Gibbon, who helped develop the heart/lung machine. It was interesting to note the role WW2 played in many of the first heart surgeons lives and careers. Greatbach developed the first pacemakers and founded medtronic in the 1950s. More interestingly the developtment of understanding the role of cholesterol, its transporters in the blood (LDL and HDL) and the effect of heart rate and metabolic rate on the animal longevity. The book conveyes a lot of seemingly unrelated facts with much more grace than this review and takes the more "sight seeing approuch" to topics, stopping by and exploring little ditbits of information (and context) even if they don't nessassarily direct to a specific point. The book is rather wide in focus, touching on a multitide of topics that I found fascinating (even though one may already know much of this information). As someone who works in the healthcare community and is familier with some of these concepts, I really found some of the information here very eye opening and I really appreciated the insight I got on some of the subjects I was already aware of. In short, there's a lot here to unpack, and I recomend this book to anyone with a passing interest in anything.