Pump: A Natural History of the Heart

by Bill Schutt

Overview

"Fascinating . . . Surprising entertainment, combining deep learning with dad jokes . . . [Schutt] is a natural teacher with an easy way with metaphor.”—The Wall Street Journal

In this lively, unexpected look at the hearts of animals—from fish to bats to humans—American Museum of Natural History zoologist Bill Schutt tells an incredible story of evolution and scientific progress.

We join Schutt on a tour from the origins of circulation, still evident in microorganisms today, to the tiny hardworking pumps of worms, to the golf-cart-size hearts of blue whales. We visit beaches where horseshoe crabs are being harvested for their blood, which has properties that can protect humans from deadly illnesses. We learn that when temperatures plummet, some frog hearts can freeze solid for weeks, resuming their beat only after a spring thaw. And we journey with Schutt through human history, too, as philosophers and scientists hypothesize, often wrongly, about what makes our ticker tick. Schutt traces humanity’s cardiac fascination from the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, who believed that the heart contains the soul, all the way up to modern-day laboratories, where scientists use animal hearts and even plants as the basis for many of today’s cutting-edge therapies.

Written with verve and authority, weaving evolutionary perspectives with cultural history, Pump shows us this mysterious organ in a completely new light.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643753232
Publisher:	Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Publication date:	09/13/2022
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	656,820
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Bill Schutt is a vertebrate zoologist and author of six nonfiction and fiction books, including Pump: A Natural History of the Heart and the New York Times Editor’s Choice, Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History. Recently retired from his post as professor of biology at LIU Post, he is a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History, where he has studied bats all over the world. His research has been featured in Natural History magazine as well as in the New York Times, Newsday, the Economist, and Discover.

This author is represented by the Hachette Speakers Bureau.

Table of Contents

Prologue: A Small Town with a Big Heart 1

Part 1 Wild at Heart

1 Size Matters I 15

2 Size Matters II 26

3 Blue Blood and Bad Sushi 41

4 Insects, Sump Pumps, Giraffes, and Mothra 71

5 On the Vertebrate Beat 89

6 Out in the Cold 101

7 Ode to Baby Fae 126

Part 2 What We Knew and What We Thought We Knew

8 Heart and Soul: The Ancient and Medieval Cardiovascular System 139

9 What Goes In… 164

10 The Barber's Bite and the Strangled Heart 174

Part 3 From Bad to Better

11 Hear Here: From Stick to Stethoscope 195

12 Don't Try This at Home… Unless Accompanied by a Very Special Nurse 202

13 "Hearts and Minds" … Sort Of 209

14 What Becomes of the Brokenhearted? 217

15 What's Snakes Got to Do, Got to Do with It? 229

16 Grow Your Own 243

Acknowledgments 254

Notes 258

Questions for Discussion 271

Editorial Reviews

"Fascinating . . . Surprising entertainment, combining deep learning with dad jokes . . . [Schutt] is a natural teacher with an easy way with metaphor.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“[A] show-stopping exploration of cardiac biology . . . Informative, playful, and impossible to put down."
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“This brisk and engaging history of hearts of all forms and sizes packs a punch.”
—Foreword Reviews, starred review

“Pump is a natural history of the heart and the science is fascinating. Schutt is a zoologist, and entertainingly details the evolution of the heart. I especially loved how this book so successfully tells the human story, of how and why we came to regard the heart as something more than a blood-pumping organ. There are cool animals and plenty of song lyrics, tales of medical misadventure and triumph, and even time with one gigantic whale heart. As with all Schutt’s non-fiction, there’s a mix of both humor and the macabre. It is science writing at its finest.”
—Cool Green Science (blog of The Nature Conservancy)

"An easy-to-read and fascinating look into the complexity and wonder of the heart in its many forms."
—Booklist

"Schutt covers a lot of ground here and discusses serious science, but his witty style keeps it readable . . .  An engaging, often droll look at the engine of life and the long history of efforts to understand it."
—Library Journal

"Wonderful. Pump is informative and entertaining and the science is impeccable. I highly recommend it."
—Joseph C. Piscatella, author ofDon’t Eat Your Heart Out

“Pump is an absolutely fascinating journey through the human heart by way of our animal kin. It's so packed with cool details, you'll want to read it twice.”
—Jennifer S. Holland, author of the New York Times bestselling Unlikely Friendships series
 
“Pump takes readers on a fantastic and fascinating voyage of all matters of the heart.”  
—Cat Warren, author of What the Dog Knows
 
“As Bill Schutt delightfully shows us in his new book, hearts have gripping stories to tell about a huge range of topics, from the history of life on our planet to the foibles of humankind.”
—Ian Tattersall, coauthor of The Accidental Homo Sapiens
 
“Narrating stories from across the animal kingdom, Schutt brings his usual intelligence and humor to this well-curated natural history of the heart and circulatory system. Pump is not your cardiologist’s book on the heart. A rich and entertaining read that will leave you feeling smarter.”
—Darrin Lunde, Author of The Naturalist

“A fine overview of an essential organ.”
—Kirkus Reviews
 

From the Publisher

★ 07/19/2021

“The history of cardiovascular medicine has no shortage of strange stories and bizarre treatments,” writes zoologist Schutt (Cannibalism) in this show-stopping exploration of cardiac biology. In three parts, Schutt muses on various aspects of the heart, balancing scientific facts and light anecdotes. Part one, “Wild at Heart,” provides an evolutionary history of the heart and the circulatory system, and introduces antarctic icefish, the only vertebrates with clear rather than red blood. “What We Knew and What We Thought We Knew” takes a retrospective look at early ideas on the heart, surveying how it was once thought to be the “center of emotion,” and “From Bad to Better” covers such cardiovascular discoveries as cardiac catheterization and the origin of the stethoscope (a Parisian physician invented it in the 1810s). Along the way, Schutt discusses such curiosities as the possible maladies that befell Charles Darwin (serious heart disease, based on his letters) and the fact that beached, putrefying blue whales don’t explode from the buildup of internal gases as happens with sperm whales. The author successfully pairs accessible science with strong storytelling, describing how Greek, Egyptian, and medieval scholars helped advance human knowledge (and at times misled it). The result is informative, playful, and impossible to put down. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

09/01/2021

Zoologist Schutt (American Museum of Natural History; author of the best-selling Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History) turns his wry lens on the heart and circulatory system in this entertaining read. Divided into three parts, the book begins with a survey of the animal kingdom that explains the heart's anatomy, physiological functions, and evolution. Schutt covers a lot of ground here and discusses serious science, but his witty style keeps it readable. The book's second part traces the progression of medical knowledge about the heart and circulatory system. Here, Schutt is in his element, highlighting "strange stories and bizarre treatments" like bloodletting and early attempts at blood transfusion. He discusses the medical pioneers from around the world who established many of the present day's understandings (and misunderstandings) of the heart and circulation, including Galen of Pergamon, Ibn al-Nafis, Andreas Vesalius, and William Harvey. The book's final part covers advances in modern cardiology, particularly René Laënnec's 1816 invention of the stethoscope, and the first cardiac catheterization, by Werner Forssmann in 1929. The book includes helpful black-and-white illustrations of the heart's anatomy. VERDICT An engaging, often droll look at the engine of life and the long history of efforts to understand it.—Robert Eagan, Windsor P.L., Ont.

Library Journal

2021-07-18
A professor of biology writes “a story about hearts and the circulatory systems associated with them."

By definition, the heart is an organ that receives fluid containing oxygen and nutrients from the body and then pumps it back out. Tiny, one-celled organisms—and some not so tiny (flatworms, corals, jellyfish)—don’t need one; they acquire these necessities by simple diffusion from the outside. More than 500 million years ago, writes Schutt, who is also a research associate in residence at the American Museum of Natural History, muscles evolved, forming the earliest circulatory system that moved fluids around. Hearts evolved later. The heart allows animals to grow large and move fast, but it isn’t essential. Insects don’t have one, but they don’t grow large. Although most readers give priority to their own heart, the author waits until the book’s halfway point to take it up. Nonetheless, few will object to his detours, including the especially enjoyable sections on the horseshoe crab and the blue whale. Ten chapters on the human heart deliver a scattershot but satisfying mixture of history, biology, and high-tech medicine. We are aware of our heart, perhaps more than other organs, so common sense convinced people throughout history that it was the seat of consciousness and personality. The rise of scientific research led to more accurate information, but it was a bumpy process, as revealed by Schutt’s informative and gruesome history of transfusions and transplantation. This is not a self-help book, but readers will learn details of common heart diseases and their treatments. Schutt peppers his text with jokes, asides, and cute footnotes, but tolerant readers will learn a great deal. Wynne’s clean, black-and-white line drawings, especially the diagrams of complex biological systems, provide a helpful visual accompaniment to the text.

A fine overview of an essential organ.

Kirkus Reviews