Book: The Body Electric

The Body Electric is a wonderful journey into the career of Robert Becker, an orthopedic surgeon who was plagued by the mysteriousness of non-unions, broken bones that didn't want to mend. While trying to find an answer, he resolved to learn about regeneration and what better prospects than to learn from the masters...salamanders! Leading you through his experiments and their conclusions, he slowly builds up his post-hoc case; that our bodies are electric and subtle currents tell cells which type of cell to be/become.

Our bodies are electric and subtle currents tell cells which type of cell to be/become.

Dr. Becker mapped out the current potentials of numerous mammals and found that the brains and spinal columns were always positively charged and the extremities were negative. However, when injured, the potentials, in that area, would flip!

In an early experiment, the forearms of salamanders were cut. After a couple hours/days a blastema (a pustule of undifferentiated cells) begins to form (as normal). Dr. Becker found that when transplanting this blastema early from the forearm to the tail, the salamander grew an extra tail! But when he transplanted the blastema late, the salamander grew an extra forearm on their tail!

These two examples are but a drop in the ocean of knowledge contained in this book which, when analyzed to their full extent, will make you rethink how you think about life, medicine, and technology.