Five Quarts: A Personal and Natural History of Blood

Author: Hayes, Bill B.

Color: Red

Edition: Reprint

Format: Illustrated

Number Of Pages: 304

Details:

“This beguiling brew of fascinating scientific facts and illuminating, poignant anecdotes makes Five Quarts something like blood itself: vital and pulsing with energy.” –Entertainment Weekly From ancient Rome, where gladiators drank the blood of vanquished foes to gain strength and courage, to modern-day laboratories, where machines test blood for diseases and scientists search for elusive cures, Bill Hayes takes us on a whirlwind journey through history, literature, mythology, and science by way of the great red river that runs five quarts strong through our bodies. Hayes also recounts the impact of the vital fluid in his daily life, from growing up in a household of five sisters and their monthly cycles to his enduring partnership with an HIV-positive man. As much a biography of blood as it is a memoir of how this rich substance has shaped one man’s life, Five Quarts is by turns whimsical and provocative, informative and moving.

Reviews:

“Playful and powerful . . .profoundly moving . . . Hayes writes with so much panache that reading this book is thrilling.” –The Boston Globe

"Bill Hayes is on his way to becoming one of those rare authors who can tackle just about any subject in book form, and make you glad he did. . . . [Five Quarts is] a breezy ride of a book that . . . equips even a casual reader with the knowledge to gain new insights into life.” –San Francisco Chronicle

“Hayes’s fascination with scientific discovery is matched by his unerring sense for the right phrase, the right anecdote, to draw others into his delight and wonder.” –The Advocate

“The perfect gift for the phlebotomist in your life.” –Newsweek (Top Pick of the Week) From the Back Cover

"We're born in blood. Our family histories are contained in it, our bodies nourished by it daily. Five quarts run through each of us, along some sixty thousand miles of arteries, veins, and capillaries." -from" Five Quarts" In the national bestseller Sleep Demons, Bill Hayes took us on a trailblazing trip through the night country of insomnia. Now he is our guide on a whirlwind journey through history, literature, mythology, and science by means of the great red river that runs five quarts strong through our bodies. Profusely illustrated, the journey stretches from ancient Rome, where gladiators drank the blood of vanquished foes to gain strength and courage, to modern-day laboratories, where high-tech machines test blood for diseases and dedicated scientists search for elusive cures. Along the way, there will be world-changing triumphs: William Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood; Antoni van Leeuwenhoek's advances in making the invisible world visible in the early days of the microscope; Dr. Paul Ehrlich's Nobel-Prize-winning work in immunology; Dr. Jay Levy's codiscovery of the virus that causes AIDS. Yet there will also be ignorance and tragedy: the widespread practice of bloodletting via incision and the use of leeches, which harmed more than it healed; the introduction of hemophilia into the genetic pool of nineteenth-century European royalty thanks to the dynastic ambitions of Queen Victoria; the alleged spread of contaminated blood through a phlebotomist's negligence in modern-day California. This is also a personal voyage, in which Hayes recounts the impact of the vital fluid in his daily life, from growing up in a household of five sisters andtheir monthly cycles, to coming out as a gay man during the explosive early days of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco, to his enduring partnership with an HIV-positive man. As much a biography of blood as it is a memoir of how this rich substance has shaped one man's life,

"Five Quarts is by turns whimsical and provocative, informative and moving. It will get under your skin.

"From the Hardcover edition.

About the Author:

The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in nonfiction, Bill Hayes is a frequent contributor to The New York Times and the author of four books: Sleep Demo...

EAN: 9780345456885

Release Date: 14-02-2006

Languages: English

Item Note: Great shape- pages are unmarked and sharp.Has a remainder mark. Paperback Used - Very Good Ships fast! 2006Reprint

Item Condition: UsedVeryGood

Binding: Paperback