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June Timely Topics- Relaxation, Recreation, and Remembering

For many of us in the world, June is a welcome month. Warm, sunny weather, colorful flowers, the first day of summer. Students get a break from school, and travelers hit the roads and the sky. Lots of fun to be had, but also times to slow down, remember, and reflect.

Remembering June 6, 1944

First, people in the United States, Europe, and other Allied nations remember the events of June 6, 1944, the beginning of the end of World War 2.

Safe and healthy recreation

Here are links to posts that can help you enjoy the “lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer”

two people dangling their legs into a pool.
Don’t let water-related illness spoil your summer fun. photo from stock photo site- Lightstock.com- affiliate link

Don’t drink the water-how to avoid water-related illness

Safe and healthy cruising-keys to an enjoyable vacation

5 insect repellents to keep you safe this summer

Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days Of Summer – Nat King Cole (LIVE)

Relax with summer reading

My Reader Rewards Club is a great way to earn free books and Bibles for yourself, friends, and family! Your journey to earning free faith-based products starts HERE.
(When you sign up through these links, I can earn free books too.)

USE THIS LINK TO SIGN UP

As a member, you’ll have access to inspiring literature, Bibles, special promotional offers, and much more. Earning points is easy—you’ll receive 25 points just for signing up!

Bookshop.org is an online bookstore with a mission to financially support local, independent bookstores. They believe bookstores are essential to a healthy culture and they are dedicated to the common good. Bookshop.org donates a portion of every sale to independent bookstores.

exploring the HEART of health

I hope you enjoy some recreation, relaxation, and reenergizing this summer (even if it’s winter where you live). Please follow me here and subscribe to receive a message when I post something new. And follow on Facebook where I post new and old posts, and a weekly Friday Funny you don’t want to miss.

Dr. Aletha

Spare Parts-the history of transplant surgery- a book review

Before physicians could even begin to think about moving organs from one person to another, they needed to know what organs are in the body, what they do, and how they interact. One crucial step was understanding the circulatory system and the role of blood, which was “still entangled with ancient humoral and religious ideas.”

In December 2021 a 57-year-old man was on life support due to heart failure. His only hope for long-term survival was a heart transplant. After being informed of the risks of the procedure, he consented and received a new heart in early 2022.

This might not seem so momentous in these days of routine organ transplantations. But this one was not so routine, because the heart that he received was not human-it was a genetically modified pig heart.

Thousands of years before Western medicine, people began investigating the human body by observing and experimenting on plants and animals, sometimes in ways we consider unethical now. Their motives ranged from curiosity to compassion to commercial.

Spare Parts by Paul Craddock, PhD

Dr. Paul Craddock earned his doctorate by exploring “how transplants have for centuries invited reflection on human identity”.

He begins his narrative in 16th-century Renaissance Italy where surgeons first mastered skin transplants, or grafting techniques, to replace lost noses. And he goes back in time to the ancient Greeks where we encounter the teachings of Galen and Hippocrates.

Transplant surgery and space exploration exploded in the mid-20th century. The first successful heart transplant by Dr. Christian Bernard in Cape Town, South Africa was only two years before astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon.

But long before either event could happen, scientists explored and learned the basics of astronomy and of medicine. Before physicians could even begin to think about moving organs from one person to another, they needed to know what organs are in the body, what they do, and how they interact. One crucial step was understanding the circulatory system and the role of blood, which was “still entangled with ancient humoral and religious ideas.”

Even though organs like kidneys are relatively simple to transplant anatomically, the issue of rejection of foreign tissue by the body made successful transplantation impossible. The only successful kidney transplant was between twins; rejection was not an issue due to sharing the same genes.

In 1951 scientists identified why rejection occurred by studying cow twins. It took another 10 years to successfully transplant a kidney to a non-twin using immunosuppressive drugs.

The need to bypass the lungs makes transplanting hearts complicated. By the late 1960s, this was possible but progress was slow due to persistent issues with rejection until an effective drug, cyclosporin, was developed in the late 1970s. With it, in 1981 the first patient received a heart-lung transplant and lived 5 years.

Since then, transplantation medicine has surged, including “vascularized composite allotransplantation”, that is entire body parts such as hands and the face. But with those has come a new problem-psychological rejection.

In Spare Parts you will learn such fascinating facts as

  • Early blood transfusions involved animal blood infused into people- and were often successful, at least for a short time.
  • The first dental procedure was tooth extraction, and implantation of “donor” teeth became quite lucrative.
  • The tooth transplants were the first exchanges of body parts to become heartless financial transactions.
  • The differing definitions of death in each country played a role in the first heart transplant occurring in South Africa instead of the United States
  • A pharmaceutical company made a breakthrough anti-rejection drug from fungal spores; soil samples containing the fungus had immune-suppressive properties
  • The first kidney “transplant” was done by taping a kidney to the patient’s arm after attaching the blood vessels to her existing diseased kidney
  • By understanding vaccination, scientists developed the technique for blood typing, making blood transfusion safe.
  • In Iran, it is legal to sell one’s kidney. “one kidney is enough.”
In dentist's office, teeth are being transplanted from men to women.
In the dentist’s office, teeth are being transplanted from men to women. Image from the National Library of Medicine collection, Rowlandson, Thomas, 1756-1827, artist

History and medicine buffs will recognize many familiar names like Aristotle, Galen, Copernicus, Boyle, Boerhaave, Harvey, Jenner, Lindbergh, Bernard, and Cooley. But most characters are previously unknown, unsung players in the search for the mystery of human life.

“The story of transplantation is not merely technical progress. But a primarily human journey…. about how we understand our bodies, and our relationships with one another and with ourselves.”

One caveat for this book; although Dr Craddock tells his story tastefully it may not be appropriate for those who are squeamish about medical or anatomical descriptions. I found the narrative convoluted at times. It’s not a quick or easy read but well worth the time and effort for those who like to delve deeply into historical narratives.

I received a DRC of Spare Parts from NetGalley and St Martin’s Press in exchange for a review.

Other book reviews at Watercress Words about the way the body works

“Although average survival in lung transplants has slowly improved, the numbers still don’t look as good as for kidney transplants. Further down the line, the science of stem cells and lung regeneration may eliminate the need for any type of foreign transplant. “

BREATH TAKING – a book review

We take 7.5 million breaths a year and some 600 million in our lifetime. Breath Taking is an exhaustive review of why and how our lungs work, and what happens to our lives when they are attacked and injured by disease.

Keep reading

A man needed a heart transplant to stay alive- but couldn’t afford the anti-rejection drugs, in

exploring the HEART of health

Spare Parts is also available at Bookshop.org.

Bookshop.org is an online bookstore with a mission to financially support local, independent bookstores. They believe bookstores are essential to a healthy culture and they are dedicated to the common good. Bookshop.org donates a portion of every sale to independent bookstores.

Medical stethoscope and heart on a textured background

Dr Aletha

Don’t believe the Superwoman myth-a book review

Vicki Courtney is a speaker and the best-selling author of numerous books and Bible studies, this review introduces one of her books.

The Biblical “Superwoman”

  Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.

Proverbs 31:10, KJV, King James Version, public domain

If you’ve read or heard much of the Bible, you’ve probably learned about the Proverbs 31 Virtuous Woman. And if you attend church you’ve probably heard a sermon or a class about it. And if so, you may have felt intimidated by trying to live up to this ideal “virtuous woman”.

More modern translations of the Bible translate the original word virtuous in other ways-excellent, capable, noble, even simply “truly good.”
But women can still end up feeling they just don’t measure up to the ideal.

Even though Vickey Courtney wrote her book, The Virtuous Woman: Shattering the Superwoman Myth, 20 years ago, not much has changed for the standards women hold themselves and each other to. And not just in the church.

With social media, we now can quickly and easily compare ourselves to each other, and to popular “influencers”, causing us to feel even more pressure to measure up.

Shattering the Superwoman Myth

But Vicky Courtney shows us a different view of excellence, or what one Bible version calls a “woman of strength” (NRSUE).

2 women talking over coffee with open bibles
graphic from the Lightstock collection, an affiliate link

“Deep in the heart of every person is a desperate need to feel worth and value. Most people will end up defining their worth according to the world rather than by God’s standard of measure.

Defining our worth correctly is critical not only in our pursuit to be a virtuous (excellent) woman but for our overall mental health. One can wonder how many addictions, mental anxieties, and health problems could be avoided if the worth of the individual had been properly defined in the first place.

The virtuous (excellent) woman of Proverbs 31 had defined her worth according to God’s standards. “

Vicki Courtney

Read a sample at this link

Other books by Vickie Courtney

Listen to a sample here

 

 

exploring the HEART of health

 Thanks for considering these affiliate links. Any purchase made through these links helps support this blog and its mission to share the heart of health all over the world. Please follow and share often.

 

Medical stethoscope and heart on a textured background

Dr Aletha

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