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Petra is wondering when this dawn will beome day's Reviews > Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal
Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal
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Petra is wondering when this dawn will beome day's review
bookshelves: 2014-reviews, 2014-read, medicine-science, reviewed
Aug 22, 2014
bookshelves: 2014-reviews, 2014-read, medicine-science, reviewed
I've finished the book. I'm left with the feeling that lies somewhere between TMI, an author's perverse, small-boy like joy in slightly shocking the adults by talking about farts and turds, and actually being interested in the transformation from a Michelin chef plate of food into, moments later, a disgusting saliva-covered bolus no one even wants to look at.
The book is punctuated with many small revelations that won't change my life in any way but are good to drop into a conversation for that OMG moment on someone else's face. Like, Elvis Presley died of constipation, the straining of which brought on a fatal heart attack. Poor man had been constipated all his life and never travelled without his Fleet and laxatives. Judy Garland and Lenny Bruce also died on the loo, but more mundanely (for celebrities) of drugs. Catherine the Great also died on the toilet in one version of her final exit. In the other she was crushed by the horse she was shagging. This isn't in the book btw. Just trivia I picked up along the way.
If you prefer to think that all that goes on beneath your skin should remain shrouded in a little mystery and want that aforementioned Michelin chef plate of food to remain in your mind as an artfully-decorated dish of delicate flavours, then don't read the book. Because it's not about the plate of food but the turd that comes out the end incorporating spit, bitter green bile and the slime of mucus and how it got that way. If you don't want to know all about that, then don't read the book. You won't enjoy it. Don't say I didn't warn you.
3.5 stars
The book is punctuated with many small revelations that won't change my life in any way but are good to drop into a conversation for that OMG moment on someone else's face. Like, Elvis Presley died of constipation, the straining of which brought on a fatal heart attack. Poor man had been constipated all his life and never travelled without his Fleet and laxatives. Judy Garland and Lenny Bruce also died on the loo, but more mundanely (for celebrities) of drugs. Catherine the Great also died on the toilet in one version of her final exit. In the other she was crushed by the horse she was shagging. This isn't in the book btw. Just trivia I picked up along the way.
If you prefer to think that all that goes on beneath your skin should remain shrouded in a little mystery and want that aforementioned Michelin chef plate of food to remain in your mind as an artfully-decorated dish of delicate flavours, then don't read the book. Because it's not about the plate of food but the turd that comes out the end incorporating spit, bitter green bile and the slime of mucus and how it got that way. If you don't want to know all about that, then don't read the book. You won't enjoy it. Don't say I didn't warn you.
3.5 stars
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Reading Progress
August 22, 2014
–
Started Reading
August 22, 2014
– Shelved
August 28, 2014
– Shelved as:
2014-reviews
August 28, 2014
– Shelved as:
2014-read
August 28, 2014
– Shelved as:
medicine-science
August 29, 2014
–
Finished Reading
May 5, 2015
– Shelved as:
reviewed
Comments Showing 1-26 of 26 (26 new)
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Sketchbook
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Aug 25, 2014 11:33AM
Is this near the Panama Canal ?
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The Warsung Canal and the Islets of Langerhans actually. The Panama Canal is a bit further away.
Cut a porthole in your abdomen and fix in some plexiglass (this happens to cows apparently, so they can study the transmission of grass to cowpat).
An important study in digestion involved peering through a bullet hole in a man's abdomen. I haven't read this yet, so I don't know if she mentioned it. Might have been a musket ball; might have been a Canadian.
so glad to see your review- so many people have recommended this & i have resisted. will keep doing so!
Stelleri wrote: "An important study in digestion involved peering through a bullet hole in a man's abdomen. I haven't read this yet, so I don't know if she mentioned it. Might have been a musket ball; might have be..."Yes she did. At length. Rather longer than was necessary I thought.
Yes, she's thorough. Pierre somebody? Jean? Jean-Jacques?
Alexis St. Martin was the victim, William Beaumont the doctor who failed to close the wound properly whether accidentally or on purpose. I think it might have been by accident but when he discovered it enabled him for the first time ever to really study digestion which would bring him fame and respect, then he didn't attempt to further close the wound.
There was a photo of him in one of my science (probably biology) books years ago. They played up the science aspect and made it seem like the patient was okay with it (for decades mind you.)Truthful telling or not, it was an important milestone in understanding digestion.
I can't see anyone really being happy to have an open wound and scientists poking around in it and feeding you stuff on silk threads to see what happens. I really can't. It sounds nasty and painful.
Don't remember hearing about the silken threads back then. I guess they were protecting the young & impressionable. Ha!
Food would be dropped in to the man's stomach through the open wound on threads and later withdrawn when the food had been digested. Disgusting.
Catherine the Great didn't shag any horses, all those stories are spun out of her autobiography in which she mentions how when horse riding as a girl and young woman she found the effect of the motion and the rubbing stimulating.I'm surprised that you hadn't heard of Elvis' end before though!
Geez...I think I'd rather stick with an image of artfully decorated dishes of food. Oh yes...I have been warned for sure! Thanks Petra.
Jan-Maat wrote: "Catherine the Great didn't shag any horses, all those stories are spun out of her autobiography in which she mentions how when horse riding as a girl and young woman she found the effect of the mot..."I'm not changing my view on this. It's too good a story. Besides you don't know for sure that she didn't take the equine stimulation further. Elvis, well I was never really interested in him until I heard A Little less Conversation - Elvis Presley VS JXL.
Sounds likes an excellent diet aid.
The book?
Read it and watch your appetite vanish.
Wish it had!
>> Because it's not about the plate of food but the turd that comes out the end incorporating spit, bitter green bile and the slime of mucus and how it got that way. If you don't want to know all about that, then don't read the book.Will skip it! Changed enough diapers years back...
Mikey B. wrote: ">> Will skip it! Changed enough diapers years back... ..."Don't be tempted to read Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War then. It's full of runny poo.
Petra X"Cut a porthole in your abdomen and fix in some plexiglass (this happens to cows apparently, so they can study the transmission of grass to cowpat). "
Yup. My Dad did this for beef cattle research. The window leaked a bit. It was pretty gross.
Peter wrote: ""Cut a porthole in your abdomen and fix in some plexiglass (this happens to cows apparently, so they can study the transmission of grass to cowpat). "Yup. My Dad did this for beef cattle ..."
That's disgusting.
Great review. I had a friend who always feared that if her husband stayed in the bathroom too long it meant that he had died on the toilet so she would always be yelling bobby are you okay
Jessaka wrote: I had a friend who always feared that if her husband stayed in the bathroom too long it meant that he had died on the toilet so she would always be yelling bobby are you okay"She should have fed him laxatives in his food instead! Saved both of them from different kinds of agony ;-)
