What makes me so certain that the natural human lifespan is far in excess of the actual one is this. Among all my autopsies (and I have performed over 1000), I have never seen a person who died of old age. In fact, I do not think that anyone has ever died of old age yet. We invariably die because one vital part has worn out too early in proportion to the rest of the body.
The liver signifieth the element of water, and it is also the water; for from the liver cometh the blood in the whole body into all the members. The liver is the mother of the blood.
It is the brain, not the heart or lungs, that is the critical organ.
There are millions of ways for people to die, if you number each vital organ, each ways it can fail, all the poisons from the earth and the sea which can cause these failures.
In medicine as well as in romantic poetry, it is the heart that is the center and controlling mechanics of life. If the heart stops, life stops. The loss of sight doesn't not mean death. Yet for ages, the eyes was believed to contain a human being's vital essence - a not wholly irrational belief.
My injuries are a long way from my heart.
What about my brain? What about my heart? What about my kidneys and my gallbladder?
Our hearts seemed safe in our breasts and sang to the Light The marrow in the bone We dreamed was safe. . . the blood in the veins, the sap in the tree Were springs of Deity.
Never slouch as doing so compresses the lungs, overcrowds other vital organs, rounds the back, and throws you off balance.
The true scientist no longer attempts to disprove the pull of gravity, or the rotation of the earth, or the motion of heavenly bodies, or the sequence of the seasons, or man's need of food and water, or the function of the heart.
As it is a major component of blood, water is vital for transporting oxygen to the brain. Heaven forbid that your blood should dry out.
The heart was always seen as the noblest of the internal organs as well as the most vital. The hearts of martyrs or future candidates for sainthood would be preserved, but never their livers, say, or the entrails - at least not on their own; it was either the heart by itself or the whole lot together.
I have stitched life into me like a rare organ
Looking in detail at human anatomy, I'm always left with two practically irreconcilable thoughts: our bodies are wonderful, intricate masterpieces; and then - they are cobbled-together, rag-bag, sometimes clunking machines.
