Summary:

Luke Lewis is the son of an itinerant preacher in Upper Canada and a recent medical graduate of Montreal’s McGill University. In 1851, he joins the practice of the aging, Edinburgh-trained Dr. Stewart Christie in Thornhill, Ontario. It is a small village a few miles north of Toronto (now the site of some of the most expensive property in Canada).  Christie is tired and leaves Luke alone to work.   

Luke hopes to consolidate his learning and earn enough to set up on his own elsewhere in Ontario, closer to his farming brothers. He rents a couple of rooms from the doctor and is able to accommodate his father Thaddeus Lewis on his occasional visits.   

Morgan Spicer, the custodian of the local Strangers’ Burying Ground, is an old friend of the family. He finds a grave disturbed, which raises the specter of grave-robbing, an all too common crime much abetted by medical schools. But in this case, the corpse is left behind and the grave was not fresh. Morgan is baffled but the police are indifferent. When it happens a second time, Luke and his father try to help solve the mystery. They wonder if Dr. Christie might be behind it. What does he do all day?   

Luke is lonely and he sorely misses his friend and lover, Ben, who died of tuberculosis back in Montreal. Luke has managed to keep his sexual orientation firmly in the closet, knowing it would be the end of his career and of his relationship with his beloved father.   

However, Luke’s gallant actions in rescuing the beautiful African, Cherub, from American slave-traders, result in an unwanted invitation from a somewhat too grateful society lady, Lavinia. Through her, he meets the clever Perry Biddulph and is plunged into a torment of attraction and despair, compounded by the fact that Lavinia’s husband is a scoundrel whom the Lewis’s have met before in the previous novel.   

Luke firmly resolves to avoid both Lavinia and Perry, but she uses his sexual secret to blackmail him into finding the means to leave her husband. Most problems are nicely resolved in the end. To say more would spoil it.  

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In 1894 France, Madeleine Karno hopes to follow in her father’s footsteps as a pathologist. She is passionate about medicine and especially about science and how it can help the dead 'speak.' When a young girl is found lifeless outside her own home, the autopsy can find no evidence of murder; however, the discovery of tiny mites in her nostrils leads Madeleine and her father on a lengthy investigation involving the girl’s family, a priest, abused children, and a convent school that has a three-hundred year tradition of keeping wolves.

By the end, the story is littered with corpses, each needing careful pathological inspection. Madeleine is chillingly threatened, but she lives and justice prevails.  

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A bicycling, bee-keeping, British neurosurgeon approaching the end of his professional career recalls some distinctive patients, surgical triumphs as well as notable failures, difficult decisions, and mistakes. Nearly thirty years of a busy neurosurgical practice are distilled into a collection of linked stories throbbing with drama - both the flamboyant kind and the softly simmering type.

Most chapters are titled after a medical condition (exceptions are "Hubris" and "Melodrama"). Some of the headings are familiar - Trauma, Infarct, Aneurysm, Meningioma. Other chapter titles flaunt delicious medical terminology that mingles the mysterious and the poetic with nomenclature such as Angor animi, Neurotmesis, Photopsia, and Anaesthesia dolorosa.

Included are riveting accounts of both mundane and seemingly miraculous patient outcomes. One success story involves a pregnant woman losing her sight due to a brain tumor that compresses the optic nerves. Her vision is restored with an operation performed by the author. Her baby is born healthy too. But tales of failure and loss - malignant glioblastomas that are invulnerable to any treatment, operative calamities including bleeding of the brain, paralysis, and stroke - are tragically common. The author describes his humanitarian work in the Ukraine. He admits his aggravation with hospital bureaucracy and is frequently frustrated by England's National Health Service.

Sometimes the shoe falls on the other foot, and the doctor learns what it is to be a patient. He suffers a retinal detachment. He falls down some stairs and fractures his leg. His mother succumbs to metastatic breast cancer. His three month old son requires surgery for a benign brain tumor.

As his career winds down, the author grows increasingly philosophical. He acknowledges his diminishing professional detachment, his fading fear of failure, and his less-hardened self. He becomes a sort of vessel for patients to empty their misery into. He is cognizant of the painful privilege it is to be a doctor.

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In this young adult novel, Kristin Lattimer is a high school senior who seems to have everything – good looks, two best friends Vee and Faith, excellent athleticism especially in hurdles, a scholarship to State University, and a hunk of a boyfriend. She and her boyfriend are even voted Prom Queen and King. Kristin’s dad is a single parent, as her mother died of cervical cancer when Kristin was in 6th grade. Hence Kristin’s primary sources of knowledge of adolescent changes are her Aunt Carla and her peers, and she is able, at age 18 to chalk up her lack, not only of menstruation, but also of menarche to her running practice. But when she experiences painful and incomplete intercourse, she seeks the advice of a friend’s gynecologist.

 Dr. Johnson quickly diagnoses “androgen insensitivity syndrome” and explains that AIS is “a unique genetic syndrome that causes an intersex state – where a person looks outwardly like a female, but has some of the internal characteristics of a male.” (p. 37) The gynecologist then stumbles through further explanations and concludes, “Miss Lattimer, I think that you might be what some people call a hermaphrodite.” (p. 38) To the now stunned teen, the physician further explains karyotypes, hormone levels and the “better term” intersex. Since Kristin has undescended testes, the discussion includes possible cancer risk, and Kristin’s dad is called into the doctor’s office as well.

 The reader follows Kristin’s journey of discovery – meeting a ‘specialist,’ urologist Dr. Cheng, who provides the definitive diagnosis of AIS and explains that “chromosomal sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation are all separate concepts.” (p. 59) Issues of privacy, friendship, betrayal, sexuality, community, ostracism, social media, athletic rules vis-à-vis gender, and support groups are woven into the story and Kristin learns to cope with her new diagnosis and self-awareness.

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On the Move:  A Life describes the extraordinary life of Oliver Sacks from his childhood during World War II to shortly before its 2015 publication.  Using his journals (“nearly a thousand,” he writes), correspondence, and memories—as well as his 14 or so books—Sacks has given himself free rein to describe and analyze his long, productive, and unusual life.

A dozen chapter headings nominally corral his wide variety of interests, adventures, and travels, including his medical career, his homosexuality, and diverse writing projects.

Sacks came from an English medical family, including some observant Jews, but not him. As a youth he loved (prophetically) writing and chemistry. He rode motorcycles then and for many years to come. He did poorly on his Oxford practical anatomy exam but immediately (and drunk on hard cider) sat for a competitive essay on anatomy and won a large prize.  Later, he was warned away from bench science and focused successfully on patient care, patient narratives, and personal essays of many sorts, including A Leg To Stand On, the account of his injured leg and recovery.

Sacks left England for Canada, then the US.  He quotes from some of the journals about his travels. In LA, he worked out at Muscle Beach (setting a California squat record) and did drugs, including amphetamines. A shy man, he thought of himself as Doppelganger: Dr. Sacks by day, a black-garbed biker by night. 

Fascinated by vision and photography, Sacks includes 58 photos from the ’50s to 2006; some black and white, some in color.  These are printed together on slick paper and well illustrate his text.   

Neurology training concluded, Sacks served various institutions in New York but read widely, ever eager to find theories of brain chemistry, anatomy, perception, behavior, and more. As readers of his books know, he enjoyed using his own interests in drugs, music, and travel, as well as personal medical experiences such as his injured leg and his lack of facial recognition. He describes his meetings with patients with unusual dilemmas: the postencephalics of Awakenings, as well as people with Tourette’s syndrome, deafness, colorblindness, autism, or migraines. He became fascinated—obsessed, one might say—with these and wrote so voluminously that cuts had to be made from his huge manuscripts to yield books.

Sacks describes interaction with editors, film crews, playwrights and others wishing to collaborate. His audiences grew as he became an intermediary to the non-medical public. We read about Peter Brook, W. H. Auden, Jonathan Miller, Bob Silvers (New York Review of Books), the cartoonist Al Capp (a cousin), Abba Eban (another cousin), Stephen Jay Gould, Temple Grandin, Francis Crick, and others. One striking passage describes taking Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams to see locked-in patients in preparation for the film version of Awakenings.

In his 70s, his robust health faded. He had a melanoma in his right eye, with more than three years of treatment before it became blind. Being Sacks, he observed interesting phenomena as his vision changed, “a fertile ground of enquiry” (p. 376). His left knee was replaced. He had sciatica.   

He fell in love again after 35 years of celibacy; he dedicates his book to his partner Billy Hayes.

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Linden, a professor of neuroscience, has written a book for a general audience on the subject of touch. A synthetic thinker, he combines insights from science, anatomy, neurophysiology, psychology, and social behavior. He argues that touch pervades much of human experience: “From consumer choice to sexual intercourse, from tool use to chronic pain to the process of healing, the genes, cells, and neural circuits involved in the sense of touch have been crucial to creating our unique human experience” (p. 5). Case studies of medical oddities enliven his account.

Chapter One, “The Skin is a Social Organ,” draws on a wide range of examples, from NBA players to vampire bats. Touch is especially important to the development of human newborns. Lab experiments have shown that the attitude of the toucher can influence the experience of the touched. English and American cultures are touch aversive.

Chapter Two discusses the neurophysiology of touch, the sensory nerves and the neurons that link to the spinal cord or to the brain. Lively examples include string players, 1900-era women with “underwear-shaped numbness,” and the Braille writing system for the blind. 

In Chapter Three, “The Anatomy of a Caress,” Linden explores further the tactile fibers that relay touch. “A caress communicates that you are safe,” he writes, and the C-tactile system is the main route from skin to the brain.

Chapter Four, “Sexual Touch,” moves beyond caress all the way to orgasm, detailing the roles of touch receptors and brain activity as well as the wide variety of personal and social contexts.

Chapter Five looks at nerve endings of human skin that detect chili peppers as hot and mint as cool. Vampire bats have another version that detect heat, useful for locating blood vessels on “donors.”

Chapter Six, “Pain and Emotion,” opens with Pakistani children who do not feel pain; they have a genetic mutation that influences a sodium channel in neurons. Pain itself varies with people’s emotions, experience, and expectations. Some mindfulness practices (yoga, Tai Chi, meditation) can lessen chronic pain.

Chapter Seven, “The Itchy and Scratchy Show,” discusses river blindness and shingles, among other topics.

Chapter Eight, “Illusion and Transcendence,” provides a helpful overview of sensory nerves and their connection to various parts of the brain. Some stimuli activate the “emotional-affective-cognitive portions,” while others activate “sensory-discriminative centers.” Touch, in general, often has strong social meanings but does not, for Linden, imply any supernatural dimensions.  

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This is a compendium of original critical essays on a wide range of topics written by a diverse group of scholars of what has traditionally been called "medical humanities." The editors argue for a change of name to "health humanities," pointing out that "medical" has a narrow frame of reference - evoking primarily the point of view of physicians and their interaction with patients, as well as the institution of biomedicine. Such a focus may exclude the myriad allied individuals and communities who work with patients and their families. The editors quote Daniel Goldberg, who notes that the health humanities should have the primary goal of "health and human flourishing rather than  . .  the delivery of medical care" (quoted on page 7).

The three editors are innovative contemporary scholar-educators in the field of medical/health humanities. They advocate Megan Boler's "pedagogy of discomfort" (quoted on page 8) and wish to provide students and educators "an opportunity to examine critically the origins and nature of their personal beliefs and values, beliefs and values embedded in the curriculum and the learning environment, as well as institutional policies - all of which intersect" . . and influence quality of care (8). In their own work and in this Reader the editors favor an approach to health humanities education and research that "challenge[s] the hegemony of a biomedicine that contributes to disparities and the discrimination of persons who don't quite fit the codified and naturalized norms of health."

The book is divided into 12 parts, each comprising three or four chapters: Disease and Illness, Disability, Death and Dying, Patient-Professional Relationships, The Body, Gender and Sexuality, Race and Class, Aging, Mental Illness, Spirituality and Religion, Science and Technology, and Health Professions Education. At the end of each section there is "an imaginative or reflective piece" on the topic. A wide range of disciplines is represented, including disability studies, history, bioethics, philosophy, literature, media studies, law, and medicine. Some of the authors are well-known and have been practicing their profession for many years (for example, Arthur Frank, Sander Gilman, Anne Hudson Jones, Martha Montello, John Lantos) while others have entered the field more recently and are gaining increasing attention (for example, Rebecca Garden, Daniel Goldberg, Allan Peterkin, Sayantani DasGupta).

The Reader is well documented: there are footnotes at the end of most chapters, a references section of 50 pages, notes on contributors, and a 72-page index.

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The author is a practicing neurosurgeon, one of only two hundred or so women in this specialty which numbers about 4,500. She was the first woman to be admitted to her neurosurgery residency program. Her father was a surgeon and she was definitely influenced by him and says that, as the oldest of four children, it was always expected that she would become a doctor; but she didn't decide for sure until partway through her second year of college.

Once in medical school her decision for neurosurgery as her specialty came very easily. Oliver Sacks's writing had a significant influence on her decision. She was also influenced by her college sweetheart who became her husband and who also chose to train as a neurosurgeon. He is not practicing now and they do not have children.

Her description of her long years of training are interestingly related with many individual patient stories and also many descriptions of her teachers and peers. She takes time to describe how she views the specialty itself and its power structure and all that entails. Among the interesting chapters are two about her research years, one at the center for cognitive brain imaging at Carnegie-Mellon and one as a fellow in Epilepsy Surgery. The author was fascinated with the complexity of brain function and its relation to anatomical structure with which she was much more familiar.

Firlik found that she loved "life on the learning curve" and that her curiosity was broad. About her last year as Chief Resident she said "I have had my hand in saving lives and I have had my hand in helping to end them: I'm not talking about murder, of course. I am talking about helping people die" (227). She was able to write this book because she kept a journal during her training.

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This early Greek painting depicts an episode from Homer's Iliad where Sarpedon, a hero of the Trojan War, is killed by the spear of Patroklos, an enemy warrior. Zeus watches as his son "dies raging" (Iliad, transl. Richmond Lattimore, book 16, line 491). Two winged figures who represent Sleep and Death gently lift the still-bleeding Sarpedon off the battlefield. Standing stoically behind Sleep and Death, are Laodamas and Hippolochos, two Trojan warriors who were killed in battle prior to Sarpedon.

Euphronios, one of the first to work in the red-figure method, uses his simple but skillful technique to draw the hero's body at the moment it succumbs to death. Especially vivid are the three open wounds on Sarpedon's body from which blood spills to the ground. Sarpedon's eyes are closed, his limp hands drag along the ground. Zeus, powerless to prevent his son's suffering and death, sends the god Hermes to attend to his son's burial. Hermes, in turn, summons the caretakers Sleep and Death to transport Sarpedon to his grave.

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This painting depicts what in some respects mimics an anatomy amphitheater, but the title, "Arena," tells us that what is going on here is more spectacle than instruction. Painted in 1992, early in the AIDS epidemic, when rapid decline and death from the disease was almost unavoidable, this complex artwork catalogs some of what was taking place in society at the time. A shaft of window light illuminates the center where a masked doctor is examining a Caucasian patient while a nurse, similarly masked, stands nearby. A large white plume of smoke or steam is emanating from the patient's head. The examination is being filmed and narrated.
 
In the lower right-hand corner a dark skinned patient attached to an IV is lying on a gurney. An attendant has his back toward the patient, whom he seems to be ignoring as he speaks with another white clad hospital worker. If one follows a diagonal from the ignored patient through to the central figures, toward the upper left, another patient, covered completely by a sheet and apparently dead, is being wheeled out of the arena. Adjacent to this scene are people seated cross-legged on the floor, listening to a speaker reading from a book while a Buddha floats above him. [According to art critic Klaus Kertess, the reader is poet John Giorno, "who instructed Moore in Buddhist practice" (Toxic Beauty, p. 11)]. In the lower left, a vendor wheels his cart, selling soda and sausages, adding to the carnival atmosphere. Just ahead of him an elderly woman holds a flattened out body in her arms.
 
To the upper right, police barricades and struggling policeman attempt to hold back a group of protesters carrying a sign saying "Who's in Charge?". In the upper center, two skeletons stand in front of a screen and hold banners bearing Latin inscriptions. An instructor is pointing to drawings on the screen - molecules and cell membranes. Other skeletons are positioned at the edges of the painting, also bearing banners, and in the lower center two skeletons stand in front of a fruit tree. One of these skeletons holds what seems to be a heart dripping blood. Several figures dressed in costume are posing or dancing. The curved rows of the arena are sparsely populated and include skeletons of various animals as well as two men who are injecting themselves in the arm. Robotic figures appear here and there in the painting.

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