Gavin Francis Profile Books, 2015, PB, 256pp, £14.99, 978-1781253410
THE BODY, AFRESH
My previous consulting room looked out onto grass, flowering cherry, hawthorn, and laurel. On late spring days the blossom would catch my eye, blowing like confetti over the nodding daisies, in the small sunlit pauses between one patient and the next. This book is like those moments: acute, contemplative, reviving.
Gavin Francis has clearly taken a meandering route to general practice. Richness in life experiences may not be part of the official selection criteria, or indeed of the curriculum, but here is an elegant exposition of how it can deepen our empathy towards the stream of humanity that will wash over us during our career. He joins a rich heritage of doctors combining literary with medical work too: a quote from John Berger adorns the dust jacket; though the late Dannie Abse is the prototype conjured by my mind in this context.
Here, his third book delivers a delicate interweaving of narratives, well-researched information and ideas, each chapter focusing on a different body part. Much originates from his own experiences and yet Francis keeps himself from being the subject, remaining instead the observer, the commentator, the informant.
Most interesting for me is his delving into our tendency to forget how contingent all knowledge is. His description of the context to Epley’s breakthrough with vertigo is a case in point. It also underlies his telling of the many traditions relating to the afterbirth, including the switch in Britain from viewing it as waste to seeing it instead as a source of stem cells. And it is there in the revelation that footprints in Tanzania overturned previous beliefs that hominid brain development necessarily preceded the ability to walk upright.
My new consulting room has a far less enticing aspect. I have been reminded, though, that interest and beauty are often found where least suspected.
- © British Journal of General Practice 2015
