Superhuman: The Awesome Power Within

In very good condition - has markings from use - due to differing weights in books, postage maybe adjusted at checkout.

Following on from the internationally successful BBC programme The Human Body, Superhuman explores the body's amazing ability to heal, renew and regenerate itself. This stunning, illustrated book complements the television series and relates dramatic tales of futuristic medicine. We see how the body's own power of self-repair is being enhanced by new drugs and techniques, we look ahead to what will be possible in the near future, including 'designer' babies, viruses carrying repair genes to cells, when they become cancerous, tailor-made human tissue and organs grown in the laboratory, genetically modified animal organs for human transplantation and electrodes implanted into the eye allowing the blind to see.

Superhuman records the before, during and after of treatments and operations on real people. It concentrates on six key medical areas, infection, transplantation, trauma, repair and reproduction. We witness the hopes, and fears of doctors and patients as new therapy is administered for the first time. None of these developments would be possible without an increasing understanding of the basic way our body functions, nor without a clear recognition of medicine's history. This book focuses on these aspects of medicine and also on some of the key ethical problems raised by the advance of medical technology. In this guide to the future of medicine, we begin to understand just how superhuman the body really is.