Superhuman: The Awesome Power Within - Hardcover

Winston, Robert; Oliwenstein, Lori

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0563551720 ISBN 13: 9780563551720

Publisher: BBC Wolrdwide Ltd, 2000

Synopsis

The Companion Guide to "Superhuman Body" Airing Nationwide on The Learning Channel March 27-28! Following on from the enormously successful BBC program, The Human Body, Superhuman explores the body's amazing ability to heal, renew, and regenerate itself. This stunningly illustrated book relates dramatic tales of futuristic medicine taking place today, and, also, describes how the body's own power of self-repair is enhanced with contemporary drugs and techniques. It explores medicine being pioneered today and looks ahead to what will be possible in the near future -- 'designer' babies, viruses carrying repair genes to cells before they become cancerous, tailor-made human tissue and organs from modifying animal organs with human genes, and electrodes implanted into the brain allowing the blind to see. Superhuman concentrates on six key medical areas -- cancer, infection, transplantation, trauma, repair, and reproduction. It records the before, during, and after of radical operations on real people. It gives witness to the hopes and fears of doctors and patients as new treatments are administered -- in many cases, for the first time for both the patients and the professionals. None of these developments would be possible without an increasing understanding of the basic way our body functions, or without a clear recognition of medicine's history. Superhuman focuses on these aspects of medicine and, also, on the key ethical problems raised by the advance of medical technology. In this guide to the future of medicine, we begin to understand just how superhuman the body really is.

About this title

Review

The book-of-the-TV-series is generally a pretty uninspiring genre, but Robert Winston and Lori Oliwenstein's Superhuman is a notable exception. Based on the BBC production of the same name, the book explores with considerable depth and clarity the response of the human body to various ills, and the science behind medical efforts to intervene when our bodies go wrong. Like the series, the book deals with six major themes: trauma, transplantation, regeneration, cancer, infection, and fertility. (The last may seem a little out of place given the preceding five--and, indeed, it comes across as such in the book--but fertility is the subject for which Winston has rightly gained international renown, so this last chapter is an authoritative and welcome bonus.)

Superhuman is challenging and thought-provoking throughout, but also enjoyably critical and controversial in places. For example, what would your reaction be if paramedics refused you blankets and intravenous fluids after a serious accident? In the context of current standard medical practice, such behavior would constitute dereliction of duty, but given the known dangers of artificially inflating a trauma victim's blood-pressure and the demonstrated benefits of a low body temperature in certain circumstances, cautious neglect may sometimes be the best treatment. In fact, there are doctors in the UK who say they would sue if a paramedic even attempted to give them fluids after an accident. Still happy to put your life in their hands?

Superhuman is so interesting and such a delight to read that one hesitates to criticize, but the good professor should stick to the species he knows. For example: "The further down the evolutionary hierarchy we go, towards the reptiles, amphibians, and worms, the more widespread ... regenerative talent appears to be." So much hard public-relations work by evolutionary scientists so easily undone. Read Winston for fascinating insights into Homo sapiens, but read Stephen Jay Gould's Full House for a rather more balanced assessment of the other 30 million species on Earth. --Chris Lavers, Amazon.co.uk

About the Author

Robert Winston is Director of Reproductive Medicine at Hammersmith Hospital in London, and Professor of Fertility Studies, Imperial College. He is currently Chairman of the House of Lords Committee on Science and Technology. His research into embryology and genetics is recognized internationally, and among his many publications that have received awards are: The IVF Revolution, Genetic Manipulation, Making Babies, Infertility, and Getting Pregnant. Lori Oliwenstein is Science Writer at the University of Southern California and was formerly a Senior Editor at Discover Magazine.

About this edition

• Publisher: BBC Wolrdwide Ltd
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0563551720
• ISBN 13: 9780563551720
• Binding: Hardcover