Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal ~ Mary Roach
I like Mary Roach. She writes about the human body, and more specifically about the histories of sciences about the human body, and she makes it funny. But does she make it funny, or does she simply find it funny, being so amused by her research that she can't help but pass her amusement on to the reader? When she speaks, she can't contain her laughter; this comes across in her writing, all the way down to the footnotes. When she quotes her sources, they're funny, too. You form the image that she is always surrounded by hilarious scientists: one scientist introduces her to another, "This is Mary. She'd like to sniff some gases."
Gulp is a journey that begins with saliva and teeth and ends with the colon and rectum, featuring an enlightening (and alarming) look at how theories in biology were tested and how human subjects were treated over the past century. It's interesting to me how recently people believed snakes and frogs could live inside their guts. It's interesting that coroners would examine cadavers to find holes in stomach linings, and conclude that leaky stomachs were the causes of death. (In fact, the stomach ceases to regenerate its lining after death.)
Here's Mary Roach giving a talk on the book. "Mylar flatus trapping pantaloons!"
Gulp is a journey that begins with saliva and teeth and ends with the colon and rectum, featuring an enlightening (and alarming) look at how theories in biology were tested and how human subjects were treated over the past century. It's interesting to me how recently people believed snakes and frogs could live inside their guts. It's interesting that coroners would examine cadavers to find holes in stomach linings, and conclude that leaky stomachs were the causes of death. (In fact, the stomach ceases to regenerate its lining after death.)
Here's Mary Roach giving a talk on the book. "Mylar flatus trapping pantaloons!"