WEBVTT - From the Vault: Bill Schutt on the Heart 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.639 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:11.560 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we've got 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:13.720 a couple of days off coming up, so we are 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:18.000 running a vault episode today. This episode originally aired on 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:24.000 September and Rob this was an interview that you did. Yes, 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:27.280 this is an interview with the Bill shut author of 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:31.040 Pump A Natural History of the Heart, about the evolution 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:34.800 of the heart and the history of humanity's attempt attempts 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:37.800 to understand the heart. So it's a really fun chat. 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:40.080 And at the end of the episode we actually discussed 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:42.199 monsters a little bit. We talked about the Thing from 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:44.559 Another World. Oh, I can see because of the day 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:47.200 this would have been right and the edge of October 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:49.960 last year, wasn't it, Yeah, but it it was. It was. 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:52.760 It was weird because it was just after we had 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:56.760 watched The Thing from Another World for Weirdout Cinema. But 0:00:56.960 --> 0:00:59.120 I just organically asked him. I was like, hey, you know, 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:03.040 you you obviously about you know, vampires and so forth, 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:06.440 and you're very interested in sort of monstrous aspects of 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:10.160 anatomy and in the biological world. Do you have a 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:12.880 favorite monster movie? And he said, Oh, without a doubt, 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:14.960 it's the thing from another world. So we chatted about 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:16.800 about it a little bit and it was pretty fun 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:22.880 all right. Anyway, we hope you enjoyed the episode Welcome 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:26.319 to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:34.480 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:37.600 name is Robert Lamb, and my co host Joe McCormick 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:41.120 is away from the virtual workspace today, so it's just me, 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:44.800 but I'm going to be joined by vertebrate zoologist and 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:48.320 author Bill shut So. Bill is the author of two 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:52.760 previous nonfiction books, There's Dark Banquet Blood and The Curious 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:55.680 Lives of Blood Feeding Creatures. I know for a fact 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:58.040 that I've I've mentioned that book on the show before. 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:03.480 He also wrote Cannibalism, A Perfectly Natural History. His latest 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.840 book is Pump, A Natural History of the Heart, which 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:09.079 is out right now and hard back, as an e 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:12.359 book and also as an audio book. Now, we're mostly 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:15.120 going to be talking about the weird and wonderful evolution 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:18.720 of the heart, as well as humanity's attempt to understand 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:21.160 it through history. But as always I have to stress 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.480 that the book itself, pump Uh in this case goes 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:29.160 into far greater detail and includes so many more wonderful examples. UH. 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:32.040 Case in point, we don't get into the horseshoe crab 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:35.360 at all or blood transfusions, but there are great chapters 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:37.600 in the book on these topics. Is a great read 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:40.480 and I highly recommend it. So let's go ahead and 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:42.760 jump into the interview. And hey, towards the end, we're 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:44.760 actually going to chat a little bit about horror movies. 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:47.800 I'm not gonna spoil which one, but it just happens 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:50.360 to be a film that I watched for the first 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.600 time in recent weeks, so this was this is quite enjoyable. 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:57.480 Welcome to the show, Bill, would you mind introducing yourself 0:02:57.480 --> 0:02:59.560 to our audience. Hi, Yeah, I'm nice to be here. 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:02.400 My name is Bill shut and I am a vertebrate 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:07.160 zoologist and recently took an early retirement from Long Island University, 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:09.880 where I taught for over twenty years. I taught anatomy 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:14.680 and physiology to courses and evolution and dinosaurs, and my 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:17.600 research interests for the past thirty years or so have 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:21.720 centered around bats and UH, and within the four plus 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:25.520 species of bats, I specialized on the three vampire bats 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:29.079 and m so that sort of led to my first 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:32.320 book after writing a bunch of scientific papers, and that 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:35.200 was Dark Banquet, Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:37.720 Feeding Creatures. And I followed that up with a book 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:41.440 on cannibalism called Cannibalism of Perfectly Natural History. And so 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:44.680 here I am now having written a book on the heart, 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:47.920 and that is Pump, A Natural History of the Heart. 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:49.880 When did you know this is going to be your 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:52.120 next book? Did you just seem like the next logical 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.000 step or was there something in particular? Yeah, it really 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:59.000 didn't seem like the first the next logical step because 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:03.040 of the top that I had covered initially. We're more 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:06.600 macabre and and um, you know, you go from vampiresm 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:08.640 to cannibalism into the heart and that's sort of there's 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:12.160 sort of a jump there. And and really what I 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:13.960 was lucky enough with the first two books to sort 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:17.120 of find a niche between the sensationalized sort of garbage 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:18.880 e stuff on the on one side and on the 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:22.159 other side is sort of academic material that nobody would 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:25.560 read unless you were studying those topics. And so I 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:28.080 so so I I sort of fit myself into the 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:30.480 into the middle of that, and I've always been interested 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:36.120 in taking complex or misunderstood concepts and demystifying them, putting 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:40.640 a zoological slant on them, making it humorous, entertaining, and 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:42.800 not using a whole lot of jargon, and and then 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:44.840 going off on sort of side trips where I got 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:48.320 to discuss what I thought and what I believe are 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:53.000 important topics, whether it's history or or or or or biology. 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:55.520 So when I was starting to think about what I 0:04:55.520 --> 0:05:00.000 wanted to write from from my third nonfiction book, um 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:05.640 my editors at Algonquin and my agent all suggested that 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:08.000 I possibly look for something a bit more mainstream, and 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:10.279 they gave me a short list, and and one of 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.120 the things that I've did some preliminary research on was 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:16.200 the Heart. And I gotta say, initially, I thought this 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:18.320 has got to have been done before, because there are 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:22.039 hundreds of books. This topic is, you know, so widespread 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:25.200 and popular, and I was really surprised to find that 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:29.000 that that there was this space for the type of 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:30.960 book that I wanted to write, where you move through 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:34.360 the animal kingdom, you tell these interesting stories based on animals, 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:37.080 and then you move into humans, go into myths and 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:41.120 the history of of a particular topic. UM, and then 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:46.920 UM sort of grab interesting stories about medicine past, present, 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:49.920 and future. And so I was really surprised, to tell 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:52.000 you the truth, that there was so much there and 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:55.560 a lot of it was really strange enough to satisfy 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:58.680 that part of me. And I've always been into um 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:01.600 horror movies and and books, and so I always had 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:03.440 this kind of like weird bent as far as that 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:07.919 stuff went. So UM. Once I figured out that that 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:10.360 that there was enough interesting material they had to satisfy 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:13.080 myself and and I think my readers that then it 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:14.599 was a done deal that I was going to work 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.719 on the heart. So the heart, especially from the human perspective, 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:20.599 takes on all of this additional symbolic weight, and you 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:23.200 do you discuss this in the book. But but stripping 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:26.080 away all of that, what what is a heart and 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:31.200 why did it become necessary from an evolutionary perspective? Good question. 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:33.160 Let me lead off by saying that there are all 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:35.640 sorts of different things that you might call a heart, 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:38.000 where some people might not consider it to be a 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:41.279 heart because it doesn't have a specific lining that sort 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:44.240 of thing. Um. But a hard is really a pump, 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:49.600 a muscular pump. So we're talking about uh involuntary muscle, 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:53.279 so it's not under your conscious control. And when it contracts, 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:59.120 it sends a fluid either blood or if you're an insect, 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:03.680 hem a lymph around the body and there and what 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:07.120 it's doing, and there's there's variation here as well, is 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:11.239 it's carrying oxygen um to the body, and it's carrying 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:14.920 carbon dioxide to a place where you can be eliminated. 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:17.880 By the same token, it's carrying nutrients that are either 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:22.400 absorbed through the digestive track wool to the body and 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:25.119 getting rid of waste products that are produced by the body. 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:28.000 So it's a way to move that fluid around and 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:31.440 to move around those substances. Now that is not a problem. 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.080 If you're really really tiny, you don't need to have 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:39.560 a special circulatory system because those those materials that I 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:42.400 just mentioned that they just diffuse in and out of 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:44.800 your cell. If you're a single celled organism, or if 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:48.320 you're really flat like a tape worm, then then that 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:52.080 material just moves from a high concentration to a low concentration. 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:55.880 So just for as an example, um, if if a 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:59.160 single celled organism is surrounded by water, and that water 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:03.000 has got more oxygen in it then is inside that cell. 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:05.640 Then the oxygen is going to go from high concentration 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:09.640 outside the cell right through the cell membrane into the 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:12.600 cell itself. And and that's how that material moves. It 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.600 just goes high concentrations are low. That works great if 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:19.720 you're tiny or or or flat, and it doesn't work 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:23.080 at all if you have any kind of size, because 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:27.600 it's very difficult and and and diffusion doesn't work efficiently. 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:31.120 If you're talking about an organism with made of millions 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:34.199 of cells and thousands of cell layers thick, the fusion 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:37.440 just doesn't work, or it works, but it works really slowly. 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:40.920 So millions and millions of years ago, probably half a 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:44.480 billion years ago, in order four creatures to get larger, 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:49.280 they had to evolve systems that allowed those materials to 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:51.880 move in and out and within the body. That had 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:55.080 to take place, and so what evolved with these systems 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:59.920 of tubes and pumps to to help distribute that liquid, 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:04.400 which became the carrier for oxygen and nutrients and waste 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:09.240 and carbon dioxide. Um So, so it was in a 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:12.280 sense organisms couldn't evolve to be as complex as they 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:16.160 are now, um, if they didn't have this transportation system 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:19.560 evolving inside them. I have to say I really loved 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:22.800 the evolutionary journey you take us on in the book. UM. 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.480 I think back to your your your book on vampires 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:30.800 and blood drinking and the evolution of bats, and in 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:33.520 a way, it's like, we kind of think, we already 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:36.080 feel like the destination there is weird enough, so we 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.840 expect the journey to be weird. Um And with the heart, 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:41.839 it's easy to take it for granted. But it's such 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:45.880 a weird and wonderful evolutionary journey you describe. Thank you 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:48.280 very much. Now, I love how you explain that we 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:50.560 have to get away from the human centric view that 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:53.360 the human heart is is like the pinnacle of design 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:55.880 or anything of that nature, you know, the the ultimate 0:09:55.960 --> 0:10:00.560 In um An evolution, you describe a number of of 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:03.960 wonderful um and if I guess from the human perspective, 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.600 strange hearts in the book. If you were to play favorites, 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:11.600 which non human heart in the book impressed you the most, UM, 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:15.160 probably the blue whale heart, for for reasons that that 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:18.280 might not be readily apparent. And and so in the 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.440 prologue in the first chapter, I detailed the um the 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.200 adventure that my friends up at the Royal Ontario Museum 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:28.079 in Toronto took when when unfortunately, nine blue whales died 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:31.600 on the ice up in Canada, and usually these whales 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:34.360 sink and uh and three of them didn't. They washed 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:37.120 the shore on in these remote spots, and and and 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:40.160 these guys went in there and and and recovered one 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:42.000 of the hearts. And the reason they did this is 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:45.240 because you know, they were mammalogists, and they kept hearing 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:47.680 this question from folks about what's the largest heart in 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:49.800 the world. Well, blue whale heart, how big is it? 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:52.760 They really didn't know. Well, it's probably as big as 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:55.400 an su they but so so when they got the 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:57.640 chance to go get one, they did it. And it 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:02.240 took five years, which I and heavy construction equipment to 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:05.080 get to move these things around. There were four of 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:08.440 them inside the whale, pushing the heart out through the ribs. 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:11.679 And when the thing was when when they finally got 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:14.160 it on the ground, it when I looked at the 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:16.240 pictures of it, reminds me of like a four hundred 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:19.120 pounds soup dumpling. It did not look like a heart 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:20.880 that you might get it, uh, you know what a 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:24.680 butcher's for example. UM. And so there was so many 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:28.120 strange things about the heart, and one of them was 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.880 was this shape that it took because it we we 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:34.000 think that it's able to collapse on the high pressure 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.360 when they die, so we would They don't know, but 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:39.200 this is what they hypothesized. The other thing is that 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:41.800 it was a lot smaller than they thought it was 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:44.040 gonna be. Now, this is the largest heart in the world, 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:46.240 Yes it is, but maybe it's the size of a 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:49.440 golf cart rather than an suv. And and that question 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:54.080 became really interesting to them and to myself. And and 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:56.560 what it boils down to is if you were to 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:58.920 look at the heart of a humming bird, for example, 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:01.679 and this is an anim mold that can can can 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:04.880 beat its wings eight hundred times a minute. To do that, 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:07.600 it takes muscle and you know, it takes nutrients, It 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:10.960 takes oxygen, produces carbon dioxides. So there's gotta be this 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:14.200 massive amount of blood flowing into those flight muscles in 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:17.560 order to do that. Um. One thing you can do 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:20.880 is have your heart beat as really fast, and hummingbird 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:23.400 heart can beat twelve hundred beats per minute, and that 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:26.920 is probably about the physical limit that a heart can beat. 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:30.400 So we're talking about phil empty relax and then this 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:33.920 whole thing taking place again twelve hundred times a minute 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:37.680 is ridiculous. So so as a as a mechanical device, 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:40.080 it's probably about topped doubt right there. I don't know 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:42.920 if you can go any and beat any quicker than that. 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:46.320 The only other way to get more blood to these muscles, 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:48.720 these wing muscles is to have a larger heart. So 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:52.280 because of that, um, humming berries have a heart that's 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:55.280 four or five times larger relative to their body size 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:57.920 than a blue whale heart, whose heart maybe beats ten 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:00.839 fifteen times a minute, and it doesn't have that high 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:04.480 metabolic demand that the little guys like hummingbirds and shrews 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:07.840 might have. That that to me was you know, that 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:10.480 was probably the most interesting. But you know, there was 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:12.400 this long list that I had to sort of picture 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:15.080 before I figured out how to answer that one. But 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:18.160 but blue whale hearts and they are on display as 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:21.360 far as gone through this plastination process. If you've ever 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:23.920 seen the body's exhibit, it's like these guys with their 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:27.520 cadavers who are posed and strange position drug dribbling the 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:32.280 basketball with no skin, which is trying to avoid that. Um. 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:35.559 So so this, this this plastinated blue whale heart is 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:37.800 now back on display at the wrong and that got a. 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:41.839 They have an interesting exhibit on the whales and they 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:43.760 so they pulled this thing back out of storage and 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:47.679 it's just fantastic, awesome. I I'd love to see that someday. 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:50.280 And there's of course an illustration in the Book of 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:59.839 Youth setting beside it like that than now on a 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:02.400 similar no, you know, thinking back to you know, getting 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:05.600 away from the human centric view of the heart, you 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:08.760 stress that we also have to realize that the organ 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:12.320 systems in the body don't function like separate chapters in 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:15.840 a textbook. And uh that I found this really eye opening. 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:18.160 Um you know, because I think to my own self 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:19.920 and I'm thinking, well, that's exactly how I think about it. 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:22.720 I think of those clear overlays and anatomy books, and 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:25.600 I think, Okay, this system, this system, um, and I 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:27.960 fall into that trap of thinking about my own body 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:29.800 that way. Can you can you get into this a 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:31.920 little bit? Because I found this a rather insightful part 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:34.480 of the book. Sure as I might have mentioned. I 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:38.400 taught anatomy and physiology for for about two decades and 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:40.400 and and one of the things that I stressed in 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:43.840 my students this is an extremely complex uh of course 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:47.120 too semester course that I taught with a lot of 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:52.680 difficult concepts. And I think that that that the people 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.080 fall into this trap, especially students, of thinking that Okay, 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:59.320 I'm taking an exam, I'm studying circulatory system, and now 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:01.400 I'm gonna take an exam and then I can forget 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:03.760 that stuff before I get out to my car after 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:06.480 the exam is over. And and that's just not the 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:10.680 case with when you talk about anatomy. So, for example, 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:13.720 in my mind, there's no way to separate the circulatory 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:16.680 system from the respiratory system, because if you're going to 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:19.240 begin you know, we talked about the fact that one 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:21.960 of the things that the hearts and circulatory systems too, 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:25.040 is this circulate blood that carries oxygen. Well, how do 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:28.640 you get that oxygen. That's the role of the respiratory system. 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:32.360 And then at a microscopic level, the circulatory system and 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:36.200 the respiratory system come into contact and there's this transfer 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:41.320 of either carbon dioxide from the circulatory system to the 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:44.960 respiratory system or oxygen from the respiratory system to the 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:49.080 circulatory system, and then we breathe out and the whole 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:53.280 thing starts again. So so I always stress the fact 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:57.800 that you can't that you really can't understand one without 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:01.120 putting it into into the cons texts of the other. 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:03.680 And then you go into things like, well, how do 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:07.720 how do these muscles contract? Well, that's tied into the 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:10.640 nervous system as well. My students would laugh at me 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:13.200 because this is something that I've just stressed over and 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:15.320 over again, that they have to think of this as 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:19.000 something other than a chapters in a book. I love that, 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:23.880 Like I say, I feel like, even though I don't have, 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:27.440 you know, this kind of anatomy background, I still flash 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.320 back to those anatomy books from like high school and whatnot, 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:34.320 and and think of myself as decided that way. Now 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:37.440 in the book, you also get into the history of 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:41.480 humanity's understanding of the heart, and h I you stressed 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:43.320 this in the book, and I realize our our understanding 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:46.920 of this is imperfect. But can you talk about what 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:51.320 the ancient Egyptians seem to understand about the actual functionality 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:54.640 of the heart and heart related pathologies. Yeah, well, well 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:58.160 the ancient Egyptians, and so we're talking say from from 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:03.600 what I have restort something like fift undred and fifty 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:07.240 BC e so that would be the Egyptian Book of 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:11.320 the Heart, which is written on papyrus and hieroglyphics, and 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:16.679 and it appears to some translators that the Egyptians knew 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:22.920 quite a bit about heart attacks and aneurysms. And you've 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:28.639 got to be careful there because these translations from papyrus 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:33.639 um to English or to whatever language you might be using, 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:38.439 you've got to be careful because that it's it's not precise. 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:41.679 They had a different way of thinking back then and there, 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:45.280 and and our translations of ancient works you always have 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:48.680 to sort of be careful about what you're about, what 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:52.560 about what you're stating as a as a fact, what 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:56.919 we do we we are more sure that the Egyptian 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:03.760 physicians believe that at the heart was was the center 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:07.200 of of things like emotion or what we would call 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:10.680 the soul. And then on a on a physiological level, 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:13.400 and this is this got picked up by the Greeks, 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:17.240 that that that there were really two circulatory systems that venus, 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:21.280 blood was completely different than arterial blood, which was actually 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:25.280 air and so um. So it was initially thought by 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:27.720 these guys that and and then passed onto the to 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:29.760 the to the Greeks, and then and then the Romans 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:34.040 who disproved the air part um that that the venus 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:37.000 blood derived from the liver uh and and some of 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:40.320 it seeped across into the into the left side uh 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:43.040 and that mixed with air, and there was this magical 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:47.240 material called numa in the air and and and so 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:50.320 they got a lot wrong. Um. Not that's not to 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:53.639 sort of mock them, because they were working with you know, 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:58.080 zero instrumentation and things that we take for granted nowadays. Um. 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:01.439 But unfortunately that got picked up. The that that the 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:05.240 idea of cardiocentrism and and and also their their ideas 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:09.480 about um about the circulatory system were picked up by 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:13.920 the by the Greeks because Egyptian medicine, that that type 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:16.920 of information was held in high esteem by by the Greeks. 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:21.399 Up from their Hypocrates and Aristotle wrote about about the 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:24.600 heart and the circulatory system, they stayed with this sort 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:28.560 of cardiocentric view that that that that that the heart 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:31.040 was the center of things like that like the mind 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:33.040 and intellect, and they really thought of it the way 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:38.200 we now think of the nervous system. Um. So at 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:41.080 the same time, now artists are jumping into play and 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.440 their writing and uh, it's poetry and and and there 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:48.640 are there's all sorts of plays and and and this 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:52.080 idea that the heart is the seat of emotion became 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:57.080 entrenched with artists and it's still there um and and 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:00.480 then passed on to the Romans. And that when things 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:03.880 take a downturn because of because of somebody who must 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:06.480 have been brilliant at the time, Galen. But uh, but 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:09.000 that was that was problematic as as we might talk 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:12.680 about event. Yeah, my next question concerns that because because Galen, 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:15.240 of course is always this important figure that that we 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:18.520 have to bring up and we discuss uh in anatomical 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:22.879 history and the advancement of anatomical knowledge. But as you 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:24.480 discussed in the in the book, in many ways that 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:28.399 you put Western medicine back um d years tell us 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:32.160 about this. Yeah. So, so Galen was a Roman surgeon 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:35.879 and uh, and he got to travel to um to 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:40.440 to to Egypt and picked up methodology UM and then 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:44.720 um worked in the gladiatorial school as a physician and 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:48.720 and began to study anatomy. But there was a it 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:51.679 was it was outlawed to to actually work on human cadaver. 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:54.440 So a lot of what he interpreted about the human 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:58.920 body came through dissections of things like apes or dogs 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:03.800 or pigs, and and he wrote a lot and and 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:06.439 and some of the material, the three million words that 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:09.400 were eventually recovered, may have been written by his followers 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:12.760 years later, maybe even after Galen died. But the thing 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:15.639 is that he um, he got a lot wrong. So 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:18.200 this was all taking place in the second century c 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:23.960 e and um after Rome fell hundreds of years later. 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:29.000 Galen's work was not was not initially translated into Latin, 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:33.240 which was the language of sciences back back then, and 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:38.880 so it sat around untranslated and and was not translated 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:43.800 until the early Middle Ages, and it was translated by Christians. 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:48.280 They were Syrians, and so when they translated Galen's work, 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:51.440 they did it into Arabic, and they put their Christian 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:57.000 slant on that translation. Now, that work that had been 0:21:57.000 --> 0:22:01.480 translated into Arabic was eventually translated into Latin, and it 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:06.200 reflected that Christian slant that the Syrian translators had put 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:10.400 on it. And and the problem was is that that 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:14.399 looked great to the leaders of the church and and 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:16.760 that you know that we're talking about so the European 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:19.800 Church and the Western Church, and so they looked at 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:23.720 it and said, well, this material is divinely inspired. And 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:28.120 so it became in a sense the rule of law 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:31.520 that that you had to follow in a lockstep fashion 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:35.159 Galen's teachings and so I for a fifteen hundred years 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:39.240 it was pretty much voting to do research and and 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:43.880