Straight to the Heart: How the Main Symbol of Love Became the Main Organ of Blood Circulation

Imagine you need a pump that will continuously transfer 5.5 liters of fluid per minute. Therefore, this pump must pump about 7,600 liters per day. You want it to run without interruption for 80 years, pumping 221,068,048 liters of fluid during that time. To fit such an enormous amount of liquid, you would need 1.5 million barrels.

Imagine you had the kitchen tap running full blast for at least 50 years. But is it true that the heart is only a mechanical pump?

For thousands of years, people believed that all their mind and feelings are contained in the heart. Aristotle linked the heart to the soul and considered it the source of warmth, while the brain was seen merely as a “refrigerator” meant to cool the hot heart. So why did everything change?

This book explains what the heart meant in different cultures, how ideas about it evolved from the beginning of civilization to today—and how scientific thought influenced the achievements of modern cardiology.

— What did our ancestors think about the heart?
— What is it in culture, art, and science?
— How have ideas about the heart changed the world?
— Is there a connection between the heart and the brain?
— Can we live without a heart?