There
had been dozens of TV programmes about hearts. How it works, how to
keep it healthy, what makes it malfunction, what to do when that
happens, etc. One programme shown last night on Spanish Channel 33 was the most amazing and informative I have ever seen.
It's a reconstruction of a scientific discovery accomplished by the Spanish medical scientist Paco Torrent Guasp who died 3 years ago, but his name will now ascend onto the manuals of cardiography, medicine, and history of human anatomy. Dr. Torrent had worked, totally on his own, for half a century, boiling and dissecting human hearts, recording all his studies, investigations and experiments, revealing what has been an enigma for the last 500 years, that of the science of human anatomy.
The structure of our heart, an organ made up of muscles stuck together in the form of a spiral, coiled itself helicoidally. He patiently uncoiled heart after heart, like one blows one of those so called party-blowers (the Spanish call it 'matasuegras - mather-in-law killers!!), that silly looking tube-like thingy they put on the table for each person attending a celebration party to blow, usually after the feast. with a coiled up end. When blown, it makes a squeaky noise and some silly pieces of trinkets fall out). The heart squeezes itself rhythmically, twisting in spirals, so as to push out the blood to reach every corner of the whole organism, then sucks it up again from the furthest point of your toes. None of his colleagues knew about his find until the eve of his death (quite significantly during an international congress of cardiology in Madrid)! As the title says: The man who unfolds thousand hearts.
Just occasionally, TV does surprise us with some real gems: showing you clearly what you are made of while universities spend weeks and months trying to explain it.
Tags:heart,medicalscience
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