I got this good-condition hardcover online, intrigued by the title. I've enjoyed other medical-mystery/history books; will see how this one is!

Later: a nice mix of history and science here, with anecdotes including the 1893 operation that Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, one of just four African-American doctors in Chicago at that time, performed on a man who'd been stabbed in the heart in a bar fight.

The author touches on the earliest scientific explorations of anatomy, from Galen to da Vinci (whose interest was both scientific and artistic). The man of the title turned out to be Werner Forssmann, who - from his photo - looks more like a longshoreman or prize fighter than a scientist. In 1929 he used a catheter in his own vein to prove he could run it all the way to the heart, thus touching his heart (albeit indirectly). (Sadly, while he did eventually receive a Nobel Prize for his contribution, his career never took off.)

The book proceeds through the different levels and complexities of heart surgery, including the invention of the heart-lung machine, heart transplants, the revelations about heart disease via CT scans of Egyptian mummies, and - most intriguing to me - the study of various fungi for their use in producing medicines to control or relieve heart disease. (Fungi are also the source of powerful immunosuppressant drugs - with the delightfully ghoulish note that the fungi in question are found in the corpses of a certain type of beetle! Some people... might prefer not to know that {wry grin}.)

There are discussions of recent studies regarding diet as it affects (or doesn't) heart disease, and some speculation on possible future methods of slowing the heart rate to permit humans a kind of hibernation.

The author's postscript includes an entertaining note about his preferred work - he studies species that live in, on, or near humans, as in bacteria resident in the navel (!), or "a thumb-sized cricket that has spread basement to basement across North America without note...", because "everyone thought someone else knew it was there". I want to read a whole book about *those* things now!

I'm sending this wishlist book to BCer NancyNova in Pennsylvania, as a prize for participating in the 2017 Wine+Food release challenge. Enjoy!

*** Released for the 2017 Oh, the Places We Can Go release challenge, for the Heart River in Wyoming. ***

a surprise at my front door today! Off to remove this one from my wishlist and to check the food/wine challenge in the forum as I didn't realize there were prizes to be had. I was just moving along books!

Pulled to read in Plum's March challenge & then release into the non-fiction VBB

The book was written in 2015, and it's fascinating to see what the author refers to in the last chapter, is now coming to fruition.
As a nurse, I took care of a lot of cardiac babies, including those with Tetralogy of Fallot & the Blalock surgery. I didn't know where that had come from.
After the chapters on the developments in heart surgery, the author tackles the topic of coronary artery disease, including the lack of studies of the stent procedure vs. doing nothing.
The study of birds - and other species - and their maximum lifetime heartbeats was intriguing. Maybe we can't find a fountain of youth after all.
This one will move along in the non-fiction VBB..

Heading out as a non-fiction VBB pick. Enjoy!

Trust GoryDetails to find yet another book with a fascinating-sounding title! ;)

This hardcover book with dust jacket arrived on April 19, by way of eponine38's Nonfiction VBB. Thank you NancyNova!