Darwin's Heart

A middle-aged man dying of heart failure consents to an experimental artificial heart. The post-op course was stormy with no improvement. His wish was to die at home so he was discharged. At the funeral his wife presented the doctors with a lawsuit saying You buried my husband without his heart. The doctors found his heart put it back in his chest and the lawsuit vanished.This case had a profound effect on the author's thinking and conduct as a physician cardiologist. Dr. Weiss realized doctors focused on the heart as a pump rather than the symbolic heart and what it represents.This book surveys how a host of ancient cultures religions and civilizations envisioned the homo sapiens heart before the advent of modern medicine and how that understanding will preserve our species.