ONE IN THREE by ADAM WISHART

Royal Society Book Prize

ONE IN THREE is on the shortlist of the Royal Society Book Prize.

Its great.

I especially like it because the Royal Society has such a heritage. Newton was its president, after all.

There is an article about it here.

And a comment piece here

THE TERRIBLE STORY OF HOO LOO

This is one of my favourite stories from the book. Its also one of the goriest, the rest of the book isn't quite as bloody. The picture is from the original article - unfortunately it was never included in the book. So now the story has been mentioned in the NY Times seems good to publish it here.

On Saturday 9 April 1831, a year before the passage of the Anatomy Act, but a few months after the opening of the world’s first purpose-built passenger railway, a crowd of men in top hats and coat-tails showed their ‘hospital tickets’ and entered the operating theatre of Guy’s Hospital in London. Hundreds of others jostled on the street outside. An attempt had already been made by the hospital authorities to prevent a scrum by moving the date forward by three days, but the tight, gossiping community of London’s doctors had defeated the ruse.

The patient in question was a 32-year-old Chinese labourer called Hoo Loo, who had disembarked at the Royal Docks from a sailing ship, a so-called East Indiaman, with some difficulty three weeks previously. He was carrying an enormous tumour four feet in circumference, which hung from his lower abdomen, enveloping his penis, to below his knees. It was ‘of a nature and extent hitherto unseen in this country’. Although the size of Hoo Loo’s growth made it exceptional, lumps, boils and malignancies were often seen to disfigure the human form in the age before routine surgery. Hoo Loo’s had been growing for ten years, but his doctors in Canton had refused him treatment. Because it had continued to grow, he had travelled for six months to London in the belief that there the art of surgery was somewhat more advanced and that the profession would have no such qualms in operating on him. On arriving at Guy’s Hospital he must have been aware of the excitement, for as he lay waiting for the operation his days were interrupted by ‘a great number of persons of all ranks’ keen to examine this oriental curiosity.

Radio Four / 4

Karol Sikora and I were on Radio 4's 'Material World'.

There is a link to it here. Its 14.25 minutes in.

The Glasgow Daily Record

"Once his dad David had recovered from his first course of treatment, the two of them resolved to take something positive from their experience.

They spent a year researching the history and science of the disease for a book to help others in a similar situation."

LINK

Sunday Times Scotland

"It’s a neat and moving blend of science and the intensely personal."

Link

The Book's Introduction

I cling to my dad’s enormous hand. With long strides, we are rushing through London. I am six. I am sometimes catching my step, sometimes just being lifted by his forward thrust. I am wearing a bright yellow cape, with a sailor’s hat to keep the rain off, and at every puddle I splash the rushing Christmas shoppers. Dad scolds me, but I know he doesn’t mean it: we are a tight pair. We are coming from an exhibition about some ancient civilisation at the Royal Academy, where he had lifted me high above the crowds so that I could see the twinkling gold swords. Now we have to get somewhere, probably the coffee-bean shop in Soho, for he has very particular tastes. Although we are in a hurry, as we round a corner he stops sharply and I charge straight into his camel-hair coat. It is warm and wet. We have paused because he wants to tell me a story of a man called John Snow whose name and picture is on a pub sign across the road.

From The Herald

""Cancer is about mutated genes,, as is life's diversity. You couldn't have evolution without the ability of genes to be robust and mutable. It's entwined with how human life works. Dad might have died from it, but there was little that could have prevented that and his life probably couldn't have been extended. Death and life are part of the same thing."

Link

It's too late for my father but perhaps not for me

From The Times:

On a visit home for lunch one Sunday four years ago, I found Dad chopping and cooking vegetables — but instead of charging around the kitchen as usual, he was sitting on a stool. He was hunched-up and his head had retreated into his shoulders. He said that he had a little back pain.

His GP made an appointment for an X-ray, which revealed that one of the neck vertebrae had crumbled and a second was cracking. The hospital couldn’t be sure of the cause but my mother, a doctor, was certain. “The odds are it’s cancer,” she told me in her plain and doctorly way.

My first reaction was to search for a book that we could read and discuss. I found memoirs of celebrities who had battled the disease, self-help guides containing basic information and others that described the science in detail. None seemed to connect.

I started talking to doctors with the idea of writing the book that I could not find. Like many people, I believed that cancer was becoming more prevalent and that medicine had failed to cure it. But as Dad underwent surgery to remove his tumour, I learnt that the past decade has been historic for cancer research and that in a few more decades it will be a disease that we live with rather than die from.

Continued

Let's Change What We Think About Cancer

The Dana Centre are putting on an event:

The 'C' Word: Demystifying cancer

Break through the malignant myths surrounding cancer with scientists and those affected by the disease. Death rates are falling and our understanding of cancer is increasing, yet damaging misconceptions prevail. Join the discussion challenging the way we think about cancer.

Professor Karol Sikora will be speaking. As will Sandy Craine, a one time leukemia patient, and so will I.

Come along its free!

Link