Kimberly T’s Reviews > Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy > Status Update

“The body’s all day, everyday achievements — the architectural brilliance of cartilage or tooth enamel, the effortless autofocus of the eye, a heartbeat so committed it persists outside a body — these are the real miracles. That’s where the gee-whiz belongs.”

Calculator happy physicians have published papers purporting to show the golden ratio in relative lengths of the bones of a finger, proportions of incisors in relation to canine teeth, structures of aortic valves and branching of coronary arteries, dimensions of the uterus at peak fertility, optimal nipple position, and the helices of DNA. Intriguing, if not entirely convincing: that mathematics defines beauty.

“You reach a point in life where you figure you’ve catalogued your flaws. You’re aware of all the ways your body and mind are below par, and you’ve made your peace with it. Then someone comes along and lets it be known that your follicle cells are weakly. (Also that they’re strangely pointy.)”

Mary donating her follicles for pluripotent hair regeneration is so fun and so her.

“So much of science is waiting,” McDonnell says. And when something finally works? “I cannot describe to you the satisfaction!”

“As with much of regenerative medicine, smaller is easier. A ventricle is easier than a heart; a mouse ventricle, easier still. One of the companies furthest along has set its sights on the smallest organ of all: the human hair follicle. Long before regenerative medicine grows a heart or reverses liver failure, it may well conquer baldness.”

“We owe our scientists a lot. We owe them gratitude, awe, respect. Mostly what they want from us, of course, is a little more funding.”

“Collagen has an appeal for would-be organ builders. It has no live cells, and thus none of the cell surface proteins that prompt the immune system to attack. The body will accept foreign collagen — from cows, pigs, most any mammal — without much fuss.”

“It’s a truth that’s clear cut in much of the world: if the cost of high tech medical care makes it inaccessible to all but those who can travel elsewhere, then low tech care isn’t inferior at all.”

I hate capitalism :)

“This is how this book thing goes sometimes. You think you’re leaving to report on a chapter on breathing machines, and then you arrive and there’s a man standing beside an iron lung saying ‘I went a week without a weeping spell,’ and the man wants to tell you about the woman who once inhabited the iron lung you’re so keen on trying, and so your plans scooch over and make some room.”

Heartbreaking.

“We will all, should we live long enough, be disabled.”

Sobering and really true.