farmdoc's blog post number 44

Most nights I get up for a piss. As I stumble back to bed I always guess the time. And invariably I come close – within 15 minutes, and sometimes closer. Uncanny. Unfathomable. A doctor for almost 40 years, I remain fascinated by the human body. For example why hiccups are stopped by a fright. How the anal nerves distinguish between sold, liquid and gas. How hair on the head and face can grow metres long but armpit and pubic hair can’t. Why males have nipples. Why the appendix persists. And why of two people with identical low back scan changes, one is pain free and the other’s pain prevents the merest movement. That these questions exist and remain unanswered, I find pleasing and reassuring. Because, maybe irrationally, I believe that every time a human body problem is solved, the world is a little more diminished. That’s why I was saddened and not gladdened when I learned that the human genome had been fully sequenced. To me it is an issue of man versus nature. Man is but one of millions of species of living things on our planet; and not more important than any other, even though we are the only one with a developed sense of consciousness. Yet we continually and arrogantly abuse this precious gift. Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life.