The Body by Bill Bryson

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Written: April 29, 2020

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On my most recent trip to India, one of my cousins asked what I would like (as a gift), but I’m not one to be picky about gifts just for visiting family! Of course, I brushed off her offer (politely, haha), but she insisted.

Knowing I’m the “researcher” of our clan of cousins, she gifted me with a book by a favorite author of some of my uncles and my Dad: The Body by Bill Bryson.

It was a hefty book to bring back from India, but I was curious to see what Bryson, a master of science communication, had to say on the broad topic of the human body.

In an effort not to end up writing a blasé book review (because that is not my intention…), my focus will be on specific points Bryson brings up that I found fascinating, intriguing, and even controversial given the all-too-fresh COVID-19 pandemic.

As you can tell from the length of the Table of Contents, it seems to me as if no sub-topic of the human body was left abandoned…

Within the first couple of pages, you can tell that Bryson has a way of describing the components of the human body with humorous curiosity.

He also threads in history throughout the book, noting the quirky, weird, and heroic actions of scientists back in the day, and how their fascinations led to the discoveries we know of today.

There’s also a mix of sociology, with one quote that really stood out:

It makes you think, doesn’t it? That skin pigmentation—the very thing that stirs up wars, targeted-violence, and micro-aggressions—arises from a sliver of skin approximatey 1 millimeter thick.

You could probably guess that my obsession with the “skin chapter” indicates my overall fancy of the book, and you wouldn’t be far off. I found some chapters more interesting than others—for example, a few chapters in, when I got to “The Chemistry Department”.

The section itself discusses the history and difficulties of treating hormone-based disorders, but what caught my attention was the complications with oxytocin, and how the difficulties of studies focused on it describe the trials and tribulations of biomedical research in general.

Oxytocin is famously known as a “motherly” hormone, in the sense that it is what drives the emotional connection between mother and child; it drives uterine contractions in childbirth and induces the production of breast milk. It doesn’t stop there though—Bryson notes that the hormone also plays a huge role in facial recognition and helping us to interpret moods in other people.

You’d think that in vivo animal studies would help us elucidate oxytocin’s mechanisms, but it has done the opposite. In a rat-based study, females given oxytocin were driven to increase production of nests and care for pups even if they were born to a different mother. On the other hand, oxytocin clinically administered to humans had no effect or rather, a negative effect, causing patients to experience more aggressive and less co-operative behaviors. The point is, the very insignificant size of a hormone belies the huge impact it has on our body.

What caught my attention as well was the the “Deep Breath” chapter. The fact that I landed into a discussion about sinuses and lungs in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic seemed like more than a coincidence—this book was published in October 2019, and after I read about the nature of a sneeze, I was wondering why on earth the CDC didn’t recommend the usage of face masks by the general public much earlier at the onset of the pandemic…

Bryson highlighted the work of Dr. Lydia Bouroubia of MIT, a “sneeze expert” if you will. Sneeze droplets can travel up to approximately 26 feet and can drift in the air for 10 minutes before landing on surfaces. A sneeze itself was found to be comparable to a sheet of liquid film versus a collection of individual droplets flying out separately, but together. Temperature also plays a role in how sneeze droplets fuse together, an action more favorable in colder weather.

All of this would have been valuable information for the general public to be aware of pre-COVID. But perhaps these times have ignited a curiosity for people to further their understanding of infections and how they spread…I only hope.

If I’m mentioning covid, might as well highlight the “When Things Go Wrong” chapter. It’s uncanny how Bryson’s paragraphs on epidemics is so fitting for the times. Given that it takes months—years even—from the inception of a book to its release on bookstore shelves, you could almost say Bryson’s depth of (digestible) information on infectious diseases was a foreshadowing event. Like, Bill Gates Ted Talk circa 2015 level.

“A successful virus is one that doesn’t kill to well and can circulate widely,” Bryson writes, when he discusses the 1918 Spanish flu: an epidemic that thrived because of the contagion’s persistence and contractability. On the other hand, Ebola tends to be highly lethal but this characteristic lends it to be slow-spreading.

To me, the most striking characteristic about (most) infectious diseases are their origins—their zoonotic origins. Whether you consume animals or not, the data is there to interpret. The domestication of animals brought along with farming and agriculture also brought along leprosy, plague, tuberculosis, typhus, diphteheria, measles, influenzas, and coronaviruses…

I think nature is giving us big clues about something…

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Overall, the publication of Bryson’s book and when I read it could not have happened at a “better” time—a time of a newfound respect for things science. The discoveries that make science take patience, organization, and creative thinking that only certain individuals may find solace in, but its communication should not be restricted.

Bryson does an amazing job distilling the biology, throwing in creative descriptions, and chuckle-worthy anecdotes to make the human body a topic more approachable to the layperson…and it needs to be.

COVID-19 has proved/continues to prove that it is imperative for the general public to have a solid understanding of science. Like I said earlier, the simple observation that a sneeze is more of a liquid sheet versus individual droplets sprayed out sporadically in various directions paints a better picture for someone, who can then make a conscientious decision to wear a face mask and understand why they should.

Need a good read?

Want to come out of this pandemic feeling like an expert in biology?

Then I recommend this knowledge-packed piece of literature. 👌🏽