Very few of us know much about the machinery & workings of our bodies. In an era when most educated people are up-to-date on such questions as gene research, or the male contraceptive pill, the depth of familiarity with our own organs (their structure & function) is surprisingly thin. Where is your spleen? & what does it do? & so forth. Sherwin Nuland's book explains the basic equipment of our body & shows how the human organism constructs its own strategies for survival. But Nuland goes much further than conventional biology. In writing the book, he became preoccupied by a question: what is the human spirit, & how does the structure & functioning of our physicals body explain it? He argues that the human spirit is as inseparable from the body as the mind is inseperable from the brain & results from the adaptive biological mechanisms that protect our species & perpetuate our existence. Written with the warmth, wit & intelligence that distinguished HOW WE DIE, Nuland's new book will became essential book for anyone who wants to understand how life keeps going.