Darwin’s Heart

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A middle-aged man dying of heart failure consents to an experimental artificial heart. The post-op course was stormy with no improvement. His wish was to die at home, so he was discharged. At the funeral, his wife presented the doctors with a lawsuit, saying "You buried my husband without his heart." The doctors found his heart, put it back in his chest, and the lawsuit vanished. This case had a profound effect on the author's thinking and conduct as a physician cardiologist. Dr. Weiss realized doctors focused on the heart as a pump, rather than the symbolic heart and what it represents. This book surveys how a host of ancient cultures, religions, and civilizations envisioned the homo sapiens heart before the advent of modern medicine, and how that understanding will preserve our species.