The Mysteries Within is a brilliant blend of myth and science, a lively exploration of medicine, history, and folklore. Eloquent and insightful, it is a book about the human body and, at the same time, an exploration of the human mind and spirit, especially our somewhat contradictory thirst for knowledge about ourselves and our quest for an immortality that transcends the physical body.

Amazon.com Review
Medicine has always contained elements of mythology and mysticism. Various ancient civilizations believed that the spleen and uterus moved around in the body when so motivated, that the heart was the center of thought and the liver the source of mood, and that internal organs were independent creatures with their own agendas. Dr. Sherwin Nuland, who has been performing surgery on these organs for four decades, here presents the amazing story of how superstition trumped science for most of medical history. For example, an early 17th-century Christian monk named Jean Baptiste van Helmont believed that the stomach was the center of human anatomy--the locus of the soul, in fact. His proof? That a punch to the stomach can knock a man out. "Had he been more pugilistically oriented, would he have placed it in the jaw?" Nuland asks.

Van Helmont's theories demonstrate the faulty logic that crippled medicine for most of human history. Human knowledge of anatomy began with observations of twitching organs on mortally wounded soldiers as they died on the battlefield, and for thousands of years couldn't move much past that. And even when a real scientific breakthrough occurred--as in the mid-18th century, when Rene Reaumur figured out that stomach acids, rather than compressive forces, were responsible for digestion--it had to be imbued with some sort of spiritual, supernatural component that overrode the science.

The problem, Nuland writes, is that the human mind seems to have an impulse to "turn instinctively toward mysticism when reason has no ready explanation for the mysteries still remaining in our biology." Elegantly and humorously, Nuland shows us how we came to understand the organs from which we've derived the strongest and strangest mythology--stomach, liver, heart, spleen, and uterus. After reading this book, you'll be able to smile appreciatively when someone expresses a "gut feeling" or relates how he "vented his spleen." --Lou Schuler

A History of Medical Thought and Lore   August 15, 2001

Thriller Mystery And Medical History   January 26, 2001

Unconditionally recommended!


Brilliant concept, but poorly executed...   January 3, 2001
  3 out of 3 found this review helpful

I love Nuland's writing, and could spend hours meandering through his explanations of medical phenomena. But this particular book was either poorly conceived or shoddily edited, because I found it much more difficult to get through than his usual lively mix of clinical experience and academic background.

There's just no balance here. That usually-delightful mix is completely absent, traded in for clumps of one or the other. He'll give a couple of tantalizingly tabloid case histories, some personal information about his own medical training, then chapters and chapters of academic detail. It just doesn't work for me.

Still fascinating as a glimpse of where medical thought is coming from, and as usual, Nuland is brilliant at pointing out the vestiges of old ideas and anachronisms even within modern medicine. But as the title suggests, this really is a surgeon "reflecting," with seemingly no particular direction, intention, or goal.

Too bad, though, because there's a lot of fascinating potential here.


A great read, and a great addition to Nuland's work   August 20, 2000
  7 out of 7 found this review helpful

Dr. Nuland's way with the English language is as eloquent as the topic of discussion in his newest work.

This book is not so much an exploration of "The Body," as it is an exploration of the actual ways Medicine has sought to explore its own discipline.

It is a fantastic, but all too short trip into the great minds of Medical thinkers, including Nuland himself, and the ways in which they have accelerated its progress; indeed, it also makes light of the ways, doctors, have stifled it.

It is, very much, vintage Nuland -with its prose, and offerings of philosophical insight. But it is not like his other books -he doesn't deal with life and the body as in his other achievements. But, if you like Medical history; if you like knowing about the ways some of our most sacred accomplishments in the field came about, then buy this book.


A Nuland Winner--For Those Interested in Medical History   June 7, 2000
  5 out of 8 found this review helpful

This book may be disappointing to previous readers of Nuland, who might be expecting disclosures of exciting medical procedures and interesting anecdotes of the workings of the human body; but those who are interested in the evolution of medicine will feel he has produced another winner.

Nuland undertakes this historical medical journey by exploring the evolution of knowledge of the stomach, liver, spleen, heart and uterus.

During antiquity matter was considered to be composed of fire, air, earth and water. Galen taught that the body contained four associated humors blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm-and to maintain good health a proper balance was to be maintained by them. The source of each of these humors was the heart; liver; spleen and stomach; and brain.

Through the course of history as medical instruments became available an iconoclast, with keen observation, was able to shatter previous myths and new insights were uncovered.

With the advent of the modern scientific method the details of the individual body processes are uncovered. Gaps in knowledge are acknowledged. No answer is considered final.

The medical practitioner during most of history was considered a "magician". He knew all about the workings of the body and how to treat illness. His treatments-in most instances of no value and sometimes even harmful-were frequently successful because the body naturally fights to restore itself to health; and it is aided in that fight by the placebo effect. Many of today's questionable treatments still benefit from the resistance of the body and the placebo effect.

Medical knowledge has been a reflection of the contemporary culture. From antiquity, myths (medical knowledge) were created by unrestrained speculation. Such myths however were based on observed experience consistent with the prevailing philosophical and religious beliefs.