The Body – A Guide for Occupants

Title: The Body – A Guide for Occupants

Author: Bill Bryson

Publisher: DoubleDay, 2019 (First)

ISBN: 9780857522405

Pages: 454

 

Bill Bryson is a gifted author for presenting profound concepts fully suffused with humour. He does this often so effortlessly that the readers cherish the opportunity to read one of his books. I am really a fan of him, having read many of his other works. This book is about the human body, the long-suffering servant of the soul. The various subsystems and functions of the body are examined in a light-hearted and appealing way. It deals with birth and death, organs from the skin to the brain, activities like breathing and digestion and how we came to acquire the knowledge of them historically. This book is the easiest way for a lay reader to comprehend what is going on inside and outside our frame and more importantly, to marvel at the working of this wonderful artifact of eons of evolution. It is also to be noted that though the body appears to be arranged neat and tidy from the outside, the inside is haphazard and messy at times.

 

The sense of awe and wonder one feels at the mechanisms that regulate various body parameters is immense. The way white blood cells attack pathogens, how dead cells are replenished in many organs but not all, the mechanism of hearing or vision are all so complicated that people who ascribe an all-powerful creator behind this magic may reasonably be pardoned. You see Bryson exclaiming with wonder, “and you can appreciate what an accomplished creation we are”! You should forgive the author for the remark on ‘creation’ which is used here only as a figure of speech. Bryson is devoted to evolution as the raison d’etre of all lifeforms. He calmly explains how the miraculous functions of a human body part are only an extension of a comparable organ in animals more closely related to humans. It is this solid foundation on modern rational thought that makes this work a pleasure to read. With this underpinning on science, you feel confident to recommend the book to others, especially with impressionable minds.

 

We know that modern science has collected a vast amount of knowledge about the human body, especially on its response to extreme stimulants over the centuries. The author notes that some of it might have come from the gruesome clinical experiments carried out by Nazi doctors on their unfortunate Jewish prisoners or that by Japanese military physicians on Chinese and other prisoners of war during World War II. In Nazi Germany, healthy prisoners were subjected to amputation or experimental limb implants in the hopes of finding better treatments for German casualties. Russian prisoners were plunged into icy water to determine how long a German pilot could survive a downing at sea. Some experiments were driven by nothing more than morbid curiosity. In one, the subject’s eyes were injected with dyes to see if their eye colour could be permanently changed. In fact, many doctors were not forced to perform such experiments, they just volunteered.

 

Bryson not only asserts that evolution is the only plausible mechanism that could bring about the complexity in lifeforms, but attacks Intelligent Design with examples of inconsistencies and ‘not-so-intelligent’ design. If ever there was an event that challenged the concept of Intelligent Design, it is the act of childbirth, in which a large head is passing through a much smaller constriction which came about as a byproduct of bipedalism. The author quips that ‘no woman, however devout, has ever in childbirth said, “Thank you, Lord, for thinking this through for me”. Then, there is a slight inconsistency in the narrative, which, if not cleared by experts would confuse the readers much. The book claims that the moment of birth is quite a miracle. In the womb, the foetus’ lungs are filled with amniotic fluid, but with exquisite timing, at the moment of birth, the fluid drains away, the lungs inflate and blood from the tiny heart is sent on its first circuit around the body (p.299). But in the caption to a colour plate of a foetus of six weeks, it is said that its heart is beating at hundred beats per minute. Is it circulating amniotic fluid through the veins at that time?

 

This book provides clear warnings for health-conscious readers. Coconut oil is said to be essentially nothing but saturated fat in liquid form. It may be tasty, but it is no better than a big scoop of deep fried butter (p.244). This is indeed very bad news for people in Kerala where we know of no other oil than that which is extracted from the hardy coconut and used for practically all purposes like bathing, cooking, cosmetics and others. The text also includes detailed description of diseases that affect us and the precautions that can be taken against them. The pharma industry’s relentless pursuit of finding cures for diseases is also commented upon. However, the author leaves a hint that many germs have by now attained resistance to common antibiotics and future diseases could become more virulent. He warns that the reason we haven’t had another disastrous experience like the Spanish Flu isn’t because we have been especially vigilant, but because we have been lucky (p.335). It is a strange coincidence that just a few months after the publication of this book, Covid 19 struck the world with a devastating trail of death and misery.

 

One sad fact you’d observe in this latest book from Bryson is the absence of his immensely enjoyable humour. Every page of his previous books had made the readers smile with witty remarks, but not this one. This book is definitely valuable, but only for the tons of useful information packed between its covers and arranged in meaningful chapters. It rightly deserves the epithet of a popular science book, but that’s not the richly fulfilling experience a reader expects from Bryson. Anyhow, the personal touch can still be felt, and the last paragraph would make you ponder on the meaning of life itself. It runs like this: ‘The average grave is visited only for about fifteen years, so most of us take a lot longer to vanish from the earth than from others’ memories. If you are cremated, your ashes will weigh about two kilograms. And that’s you gone. But it was good while it lasted, wasn’t it?’

 

The book is highly recommended.

 

Rating: 4 Star

 

What Really Happened in Wuhan

Title: What Really Happened in Wuhan

Author: Sharri Markson

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2021 (First)

ISBN: 9781460761083

Pages: 422

 

The sudden onslaught and quick global spread of the Covid 19 virus undermined the global society’s safety and security in myriad ways. Millions perished, with thousands not getting basic medical care even in first-world countries. Harsh lockdowns crippled the economies of many nations. The spread of the disease was so fast that large chunks of people suddenly fell ill that imposed a heavy cost on businesses. The virus originated in China but that country tried to hide the occurrence of this mysterious disease in its midst. By the time evasion was out of the question, the virus had already spread to other parts of the world. Even then, it was thought to have originated naturally and diffused through a wet seafood market in Wuhan. China was believed to be complicit in suppressing information on the outbreak for obvious reasons. As a few months went by, scientists were alarmed by the rapid proliferation capacity of the virus. This was found to be due to a protein that appeared to be perfectly designed to attack the human respiratory tract. Doubts arose, because the disease originated near the premises of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) which specializes in studying different corona viruses and was known to be involved in increasing the ferocity of pathogens in order to produce effective vaccines. This book addresses the question whether the virus had accidentally leaked out of the lab due to incompetent safety protocols. Sharri Markson is an Australian journalist and talk show host. She has been at the forefront of breaking news regarding the origins of Covid 19 pandemic since early 2020. She lives in Sydney, Australia.

 

It must be accepted that China was literally overwhelmed by the early growth rate of patients. Non-disclosure of the true reason for casualties was enforced on health workers who were demanded not to talk to media or to express their opinion on social media platforms. Automated detection systems wiped objectionable content clean within minutes of their posting. People who steadfastly insisted on bringing out the truth were taken into custody and detained. In the meanwhile, dead bodies were piling up, left to decay for days in hospital corridors because Chinese authorities refused to officially record any deaths. The bodies were nothing more than a logistical problem for them. After the initial onslaught was endured, China denied human-to-human transmission of Covid 19 even though it was known to them for a month.

 

Markson narrates the invidious suppression methods unleashed by the Chinese state to keep the secret under wraps. China shut down domestic travel from Wuhan for medical concerns, but still allowed international flights to leave the city. Neither did it advise foreign governments to be aware of the risk of people returning from Wuhan. News of the virus was first broken by the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases (ProMED) only on Dec 30, 2019. This is galling as we now know that the outbreak began a full two months back in October of that year. China had to reluctantly confirm the news and switched on a massive cover up operation. All mentions of terms such as ‘unknown Wuhan pneumonia’ or ‘Wuhan seafood market’ were removed from social media. What made this operation so effective was the readiness with which many western scientists and health professionals endorsed the Chinese stand. Scholars who had professional links to virus research in China did not disclose their conflict of interest and acted like impartial arbiters.

 

The author accuses Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) as the institution from which the virus inadvertently escaped. After some tentative suggestions of biological warfare and deliberate release, she finally concedes that the escape was due to some accident. This institute was comparatively new and boasted of Biosafety Level 4 (BSL 4) protocols in place. The institute was set up with French collaboration and technical support. But after the entity began its operation, the French experts were unceremoniously kicked out. For an institute doing research work on corona viruses, it observed substandard and negligent biosafety practices. US scientists also took part in the research for another reason. Obama administration banned gain-of-function research on viruses. This refers to a genetic technique of multiplying a pathogen’s virility many times by tweaking its genome. So they outsourced their research to China and specifically to WIV, where lax standards applied. The author confirms that US public money was funding dangerous projects at WIV which was having no biosafety standards for handling deadly pathogens. This book also alleges that the Covid virus, which is exquisitely matched to humans, might be a product of this collective effort and had been worked on in a lab using humanized mice.

 

Markson makes a seething attack on the World Health Organisation (WHO) whose involvement was lukewarm and partisan to China. It accepted the Chinese arguments without demur even when they flew in the face of common logic. Unnerved by procrastination from China, the US, Australia and New Zealand effected a travel ban on China, but WHO rebuffed them, sanctimoniously advising the nations to take decisions that are ‘evidence-based’ and ‘consistent’. This book is a good effort of journalism, but it does not always follow the time-tested methods in science to ascertain the truth of a proposition. An Australian virus researcher named Petrovsky found a lab origin for the Covid virus. However, his paper did not pass the mandatory peer review process which returned the paper as conspiracy theory. The scientific dictum is that if you can’t convince your peers that your theory is at least plausible, it probably isn’t. However, the scholar and the author accuse the scientific community of cover up. Eventually, he released the paper directly to the general public who are not competent to evaluate the veracity of his claims. The author must understand that this is not valid research.

 

The book is unnecessarily large for the point it wanted to convey. In spite of this big arsenal, the author has not been able to convincingly make out the case for a lab leak and also Chinese military’s involvement in the Wuhan lab for developing deadly biological weapons. The WIV was built, tested and run with input and funding from European and American agencies and it is highly improbable that the institution can do military research without awakening suspicion in them. It may indeed be probable that the virus leaked out of the lab but what Markson offers as evidence in support of the claim is just hyperbole and conjecture. The undue length of the book exhausts the readers, especially because she could have served her purpose with a volume that is half this size.

 

The book is recommended.

 

Rating: 2 Star