The Curious History of the Heart - a Cultural and Scientific Journey PDF Download

Author: Vincent M. Figueredo
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780231219129
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Author: Vincent M. Figueredo
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231557302
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
Gold Award Winner, 2024 Nonfiction Book Awards Runner-up, 2024 History category, San Francisco Book Festival Runner-up, 2024 General Non-Fiction, New York Book Festival For much of recorded history, people considered the heart to be the most important organ in the body. In cultures around the world, the heart—not the brain—was believed to be the location of intelligence, memory, emotion, and the soul. Over time, views on the purpose of the heart have transformed as people sought to understand the life forces it contains. Modern medicine and science dismissed what was once the king of the organs as a mere blood pump subservient to the brain, yet the heart remains a potent symbol of love and health and an important part of our cultural iconography. This book traces the evolution of our understanding of the heart from the dawn of civilization to the present. Vincent M. Figueredo—an accomplished cardiologist and expert on the history of the human heart—explores the role and significance of the heart in art, culture, religion, philosophy, and science across time and place. He examines how the heart really works, its many meanings in our emotional and daily lives, and what cutting-edge science is teaching us about this remarkable organ. Figueredo considers the science of heart disease, recent advancements in heart therapies, and what the future may hold. He highlights the emerging field of neurocardiology, which has found evidence of a “heart-brain connection” in mental and physical health, suggesting that ancient views hold more truth than moderns suspect. Ranging widely and deeply throughout human history, this book sheds new light on why the heart remains so central to our sense of self.

Author: Sandeep Jauhar
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374717001
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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The bestselling author of Intern and Doctored tells the story of the thing that makes us tick For centuries, the human heart seemed beyond our understanding: an inscrutable shuddering mass that was somehow the driver of emotion and the seat of the soul. As the cardiologist and bestselling author Sandeep Jauhar shows in Heart: A History, it was only recently that we demolished age-old taboos and devised the transformative procedures that have changed the way we live. Deftly alternating between key historical episodes and his own work, Jauhar tells the colorful and little-known story of the doctors who risked their careers and the patients who risked their lives to know and heal our most vital organ. He introduces us to Daniel Hale Williams, the African American doctor who performed the world’s first open heart surgery in Gilded Age Chicago. We meet C. Walton Lillehei, who connected a patient’s circulatory system to a healthy donor’s, paving the way for the heart-lung machine. And we encounter Wilson Greatbatch, who saved millions by inventing the pacemaker—by accident. Jauhar deftly braids these tales of discovery, hubris, and sorrow with moving accounts of his family’s history of heart ailments and the patients he’s treated over many years. He also confronts the limits of medical technology, arguing that future progress will depend more on how we choose to live than on the devices we invent. Affecting, engaging, and beautifully written, Heart: A History takes the full measure of the only organ that can move itself.

Author: Kate Lister
Publisher: Unbound Publishing
ISBN: 1783528060
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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This is not a comprehensive study of every sexual quirk, kink and ritual across all cultures throughout time, as that would entail writing an encyclopaedia. Rather, this is a drop in the ocean, a paddle in the shallow end of sex history, but I hope you will get pleasantly wet nonetheless. The act of sex has not changed since people first worked out what went where, but the ways in which society dictates how sex is culturally understood and performed have varied significantly through the ages. Humans are the only creatures that stigmatise particular sexual practices, and sex remains a deeply divisive issue around the world. Attitudes will change and grow – hopefully for the better – but sex will never be free of stigma or shame unless we acknowledge where it has come from. Based on the popular research project Whores of Yore, and written with her distinctive humour and wit, A Curious History of Sex draws upon Dr Kate Lister’s extensive knowledge of sex history. From medieval impotence tests to twentieth-century testicle thefts, from the erotic frescoes of Pompeii, to modern-day sex doll brothels, Kate unashamedly roots around in the pants of history, debunking myths, challenging stereotypes and generally getting her hands dirty. This fascinating book is peppered with surprising and informative historical slang, and illustrated with eye-opening, toe-curling and meticulously sourced images from the past. You will laugh, you will wince and you will wonder just how much has actually changed.

Author: Haider Warraich
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250169712
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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In State of the Heart, Dr. Haider Warraich takes readers inside the ER, inside patients' rooms, and inside the history and science of cardiac disease. State of the Heart traces the entire arc of the heart, from the very first time it was depicted on stone tablets, to a future in which it may very well become redundant. While heart disease has been around for a while, the type of heart disease people have, why they have it, and how it’s treated is changing. Yet, the golden age of heart science is only just beginning. And with treatments of heart disease altering the very definitions of human life and death, there is no better time to look at the present and future of heart disease, the doctors and nurses who treat it, the patients and caregivers who live with it, and the stories they hold close to their chests. More people die of heart disease than any other disease in the world and when any form of heart disease progresses, it can result in the development of heart failure. Heart failure affects millions and can affect anyone at anytime, a child recovering from a viral infection, a woman who has just given birth or a cancer patient receiving chemotherapy. Yet new technology to treat heart failure is fundamentally changing just what it means to be human. Mechanical pumps can be surgically sown into patients’ hearts and when patients with these pumps get really sick, sometimes they don’t need a doctor or a surgeon—they need a mechanic. In State of the Heart, the journey to rid the world of heart disease is shown to be reflective of the journey of medical science at large. We are learning not only that women have as much heart disease as men, but that the type of heart disease women experience is diametrically different from that in men. We are learning that heart disease and cancer may have more in common than we could have imagined. And we are learning how human evolution itself may have led to the epidemic of heart disease. In understanding how our knowledge of the heart evolved, State of the Heart traces the twisting and turning road that science has taken—filled with potholes and blind turns—all the way back to its very origin.

Author: Nichi Hodgson
Publisher: Robinson
ISBN: 1472138058
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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A LIGHT-HEARTED, INTIMATE AND EMPHATICALLY FEMINIST HISTORY OF DATING 'A new approach to romance . . . The heroines of Regency novels could teach today's young women a trick or two' Sunday Times 'Entertaining and well-researched' The Lady 'Pacey, intelligent and authoritative with bags of wit' Law Gazette 'A whistle-stop tour of dating through history' History Extra What if Mr Darcy had simply been able to swipe right? Dating has never been easy. The road to true love has always been rutted with heartbreak, but do we have it any easier today? How did Victorians 'come out'? How did love blossom in war-torn Europe? And why did 80s' video-dating never take off? Bursting with little-known facts and tantalising tales of lovelorn men and besotted women, Nichi Hodgson's intriguing history of amorous relationships, from enamoured Georgians to frenziedly swiping millennials (and everyone in between) may leave you grateful that you live - and love - today.

Author: Marilyn Yalom
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465094716
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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An eminent scholar unearths the captivating history of the two-lobed heart symbol from scripture and tapestry to T-shirts and text messages, shedding light on how we have expressed love since antiquity The symmetrical, exuberant heart is everywhere: it gives shape to candy, pendants, the frothy milk on top of a cappuccino, and much else. How can we explain the ubiquity of what might be the most recognizable symbol in the world? In The Amorous Heart, Marilyn Yalom tracks the heart metaphor and heart iconography across two thousand years, through Christian theology, pagan love poetry, medieval painting, Shakespearean drama, Enlightenment science, and into the present. She argues that the symbol reveals a tension between love as romantic and sexual on the one hand, and as religious and spiritual on the other. Ultimately, the heart symbol is a guide to the astonishing variety of human affections, from the erotic to the chaste and from the unrequited to the conjugal.

Author: J.R. Martinez
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 1401304877
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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An inspirational journey from tragedy to triumph In 2003, nineteen-year-old Private J.R. Martinez was on a routine patrol when the Humvee he was driving hit an antitank mine in Iraq, resulting in severe injuries and burns on his face and more than one-third of his body. Out of that tragedy came an improbable journey of inspiration, motivation, and dreams come true. In Full of Heart, Martinez shares his story in intimate detail, from his upbringing in the American South and his time in the Army to his recovery and the indomitable spirit that has made him an inspiration to countless fans. J.R. Martinez always had a strong spirit. Raised in Bossier City, Louisiana, and then Hope, Arkansas, by a single mother from El Salvador, he was well known at school for his good looks and his smart mouth. At seventeen, showing an early determination and drive that would become one of his trademark qualities, J.R. convinced his mom to move to Dalton, Georgia, where he believed he would have a better chance of being recruited to play college football. His positive attitude earned him a spot on a competitive high school football squad, but when his college dreams collapsed, he turned to the U.S. Army. A few months later, he found himself serving in Iraq. When J.R.'s humvee hit a mine and exploded -- just one month into his deployment—he was immediately evacuated to a San Antonio medical center, where he spent the next thirty-four months in grueling recovery. Seeing his disfigured face for the first time after the accident threw him into a crushing period of confusion and anger. His spirits were low, until he was asked to speak to another young burn victim. J.R. realized how valuable and gratifying it was to share his experiences with other patients and listen to theirs. He’d found a calling. His fellow soldiers, along with the local and then national media, soon latched onto J.R.’s spirit and strength. His resilience, optimism, and charm were also noted by Hollywood and scored him roles on All My Children and Dancing with the Stars, where he was the season thirteen champion. Today, J.R. tours the country sharing his story and his lessons for overcoming challenges and embracing hope, lessons that abound in this book. Full of Heart is an unforgettable story of a man who never gave up on his dreams. After being injured in Iraq, J.R. Martinez became a motivational speaker, actor, and winner of season thirteen of Dancing with the Stars. Martinez lives in Los Angeles

Author: Judith Flanders
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 1541675061
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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From a New York Times-bestselling historian comes the story of how the alphabet ordered our world. A Place for Everything is the first-ever history of alphabetization, from the Library of Alexandria to Wikipedia. The story of alphabetical order has been shaped by some of history's most compelling characters, such as industrious and enthusiastic early adopter Samuel Pepys and dedicated alphabet champion Denis Diderot. But though even George Washington was a proponent, many others stuck to older forms of classification -- Yale listed its students by their family's social status until 1886. And yet, while the order of the alphabet now rules -- libraries, phone books, reference books, even the order of entry for the teams at the Olympic Games -- it has remained curiously invisible. With abundant inquisitiveness and wry humor, historian Judith Flanders traces the triumph of alphabetical order and offers a compendium of Western knowledge, from A to Z. A Times (UK) Best Book of 2020

Author: Stephanie Butland
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 1250217024
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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For fans of Josie Silver's One Day in December,The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae is a wholly original, charismatic, and uplifting novel that no reader will soon forget. Ailsa Rae is learning how to live. She’s only a few months past the heart transplant that—just in time—saved her life. Now, finally, she can be a normal twenty-eight-year-old. She can climb a mountain. Dance. Wait in line all day for tickets to Wimbledon. But first, she has to put one foot in front of the other. So far, things are as bloody complicated as ever. Her relationship with her mother is at a breaking point and she wants to find her father. Then there's Lennox, whom Ailsa loved and lost. Will she ever find love again? Her new heart is a bold heart. She just needs to learn to listen to it. From the hospital to her childhood home, on social media and IRL, Ailsa will embark on a journey about what it means to be, and feel, alive. How do we learn to be brave, to accept defeat, to dare to dream? From Stephanie Butland, author of The Lost for Words Bookshop, The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae will warm you from the inside out.