Friday, May 24, 2013

Continuum



Half of my life was spent in school (27 out of 60 years) much of it in the pursuit of various healthcare degrees. To this end many were the species I dissected. Worms, frogs, salamanders, fetal pigs, cats and dogs were but a few. It was a progression leading to the piece de resistance, the human cadaver.

Anatomy, usually paired with physiology in undergraduate education, is one of the more stringent classes. Along with chemistry it is an infamous flunk out class. Combined, these weed out many an aspiring physician. To excel I spent an inordinate amount of time in the lab. There by careful study the secrets buried within the various creatures were revealed to me. This pattern repeated itself many times as I progressed through my training.

In the early 80's and 90's I spent two years at different institution's human anatomy labs. I doubt there are many people that have lived amongst the dead for so long. And though I do not recommend this as a reasonable use of your time, I am eternally grateful to those that donated their persons so that I might have a better understanding of what makes us tick.

Add to this, years of practicing and teaching musculoskeletal medicine and I bring people watching to a new level. I have a cartoon-like x-ray vision! It is something I have grown use to. I can discern much about a person by the way they carry themselves, but I had never thought about doing this with dinosaurs.

On a recent visit to Chicago's Field Museum to see the Lascaux cave drawings I sat amidst the hullabaloo in the Great Hall. I looked up and suddenly was transfixed by Sue, the menacing Tyrannosaurus Rex. Methodically I surveyed the skeleton. Never having picked apart a bird put me at a disadvantage when trying to decipher dinosaur bones, but there are enough cross-specie similarities to make it a useful lesson.

That I seemed to enjoy this detailed study surprised me. Anatomy is rigorous. It requires stamina, brute brainpower and imagination. Not skills usually called upon for a lazy afternoon out wandering in the city.

I familiarized myself with the skeleton, naming most of the bones and appendages. Once that was done my mind began to add in ligaments, tendons and muscles. The internal organs were just beginning to appear when the shape of the skin imposed itself. At first it was an overlying veil and then it solidified. I suppose this is how a forensic artist works.

The thought entered my mind that this gigantic beast from tens of millions of years ago has the same basic structure as the Homo sapiens looking up at it in amazement. My sense is that its now long decomposed tissues are not separate structures but a continuum of sorts, with one type morphing into the next and not separate entities. This seems obvious but of course that is not how I was taught.

Histology is the study of different tissue types and it is part of the core curriculum during the first two years of medical school. We stared for hours into the eyepieces of microscopes at slides of every conceivable cell structure: muscle, bone and sinew. Only their differences mattered for the practical. How they relate to the whole was never addressed. But sitting there looking at Sue pulled it together for me.

I have read that we are made of aggregates of stardust that developed structure, function and consciousness over billions of years. It is how the universe organizes itself. Inorganic elements transition into organic constructs of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, and suddenly we appeared to try and make sense of it.

The universe continues to evolve but now we have skin in the game. Our future once depended on the whims of nature—no longer. Chemical engines churn out DNA and RNA. Viruses are packed with it and sent into cells to alter their expression, and therefore the proteins we are made up of.

The future will be interesting. I figure I have at least twenty more years to observe the outcome of this fiddling with nature. Knock on wood!

May 2013