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Van Helmont's theories demonstrate the faulty logic that crippled medicine for most of human history. Human knowledge of anatomy began with observations of twitching organs on mortally wounded soldiers as they died on the battlefield, and for thousands of years couldn't move much past that. And even when a real scientific breakthrough occurred--as in the mid-18th century, when René Réaumur figured out that stomach acids, rather than compressive forces, were responsible for digestion--it had to be imbued with some sort of spiritual, supernatural component that overrode the science.
The problem, Nuland writes, is that the human mind seems to have an impulse to "turn instinctively toward mysticism when reason has no ready explanation for the mysteries still remaining in our biology." Elegantly and humorously, Nuland shows us how we came to understand the organs from which we've derived the strongest and strangest mythology--stomach, liver, heart, spleen, and uterus. After reading this book, you'll be able to smile appreciatively when someone expresses a "gut feeling" or relates how he "vented his spleen." --Lou Schuler
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