8 Aug 2020

If you aren’t in possession of a medical degree, or lots of training in the field of human biology, there’s a few cheat ways to find out about the amazing thing that is the human body.

Of course, you could google. Obviously. Or there’s a number of television shows that give some amazing information. If you’re inclined for a read but medical textbooks a bit too….well….medical…for you, I can highly recommend Bill Bryson’s “The Body: A guide for occupants”. I’m sure there are other places that you can recommend others to give them a bit of information about this incredible feat of engineering we call our bodies.

Because it really is an incredible machine.

Of course, for most of us, we are generally happy to accept what we’ve got – give or take some gripes about whatever genetic quirk we’ve been dealt – until something goes wrong.

Then we seem to be eager to learn as much as possible about that part of the body. We want to know how it’s meant to work, why it isn’t working properly in this instance, what we can do to fix the problem, and how we can make sure the problem doesn’t arise again.

Sometimes whatever it was that went wrong links it to a different part of the body, and our research extends to different parts. Sometimes our medication to help prop up one part of the body has impact on another part. We get very knowledgable about certain parts of us.

Sometimes we need to rely on surgery to fix whatever it is that went wrong. And boy hasn’t that changed over the last few centuries (you know, since I was young).

Because let’s face it, ever since medically minded people first dug up recently deceased people to have a good look at what’s inside the skin covering, the pursuit of knowledge about the human body and how it works has advanced in leaps and bounds.

And it continues. There is always someone somewhere researching a new and better way to treat something, or prevent something.

So whatever your gripes with your body – be it a heart valve that requires replacing (thinking of you Sue), a shoulder that occasionally suffers from an inflamed bursa, dodgy eyesight, dodgy kidneys, aches and pains and blood pressure issues and…. and….

Let’s put all that stuff aside, and sit back every now and then and acknowledge that the remarkable machine that drives our existence is bound to suffer a bit of a malfunction every now and then.

It’s a handy bit of equipment regardless, don’t you think?