Humans consider themselves to be the ultimate in evolutionary design, sometimes forgetting that animals – supposedly lower down that evolutionary tree – often have unique characteristics far superior to our own. In this book, Matt Morgan, proud Welshman and Emergency Department doctor, details how some of those special features have aided doctors in treatment of human diseases.
The tone of the book is conversational and anecdotal rather than dense with scientific jargon. The science is still there, but is presented in an easily digestible format. Morgan’s approach is to present case histories of patients, pause to describe particular animal anatomy, physiology and behaviour, then recount how those animal characteristics led doctors to the correct treatment protocols for that case.
One Medicine is divided into four sections, denoting the environment in which the animals exist: ‘The Land’, ‘The Air’, ‘The Sea’ and ‘The Underland’. That final section deals with death and grieving: particularly poignant given this was being written during the pandemic.
The most intriguing case is that of Casper, a student pulled from freezing water and who had been ‘dead’ for over two hours. His treatment utilised positive pressure breathing (learned from Brazilian water frogs and African lizards) and regulation of heartbeats (learned from a whale’s unique ECG pattern). Casper survived.
Be prepared to leave patients hanging while Morgan detours into animal anatomy and personal anecdotes. These cliffhangers are agonisingly frequent but do entice the reader to keep turning pages. Morgan is a highly skilled writer and passionate and talented science communicator.
Reviewed by Bob Moore
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr Matt Morgan is an intensive care doctor, researcher and author. His open letter addressed to patients during the COVID pandemic has been read by over half a million people worldwide and viewed over three million times after featuring on Channel 4.
His first book Critical has been translated into six languages and featured in The Times. He has spoken to large audiences at some of the largest book festivals in the world including Hay and Ubud.
As a regular writer for the internationally acclaimed British Medical Journal, his article ‘A letter from the ICU’ is one of their most popular ever opinion articles, read by over 130,000 people. Since narrating the highly rated audiobook of Critical, he has spoken on several popular podcasts and radio programmes including The Today Program on BBC Radio 4 and international talk shows.
He has appeared on several television programs including Sky News, CNN, ITV, The BBC, The Jeremy Vine Show and international channels. Matt was nominated for the 2020 Royal Society David Attenborough Prize for public engagement in science. He currently lives between Perth, Australia and Cardiff with his family.
Visit Dr Matt Morgan’s website
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