The Source of All Things

In the tradition of Henry Marsh's Do No Harm, Reinhard Friedl's The Source of All Things is a heart surgeon's personal investigation of the human heart, moving from his riveting clinical experiences to a more poetic understanding of its workings.The heart is our most important organ. Yet despite that it has not changed since the appearance of Homo sapiens 300,000 years ago, it is also our most mysterious. In most human cultures, it is seen as the source of love, sympathy, joy, courage, strength and wisdom.What if the heart could answer questions neurosciences can't begin to? Having witnessed the extraordinary complexity and unpredictability of human hearts in the operating theatre—each one individual, like a fingerprint—heart surgeon Reinhard Friedl looked again at this "primitive pump" to reconcile it with his experiences from thousands of heart operations.In this book, he presents findings from various scientific disciplines, such...