Five Quarts: A Personal and Natural History of Blood

---

A Personal and Natural History of Blood. Hayes also recounts the impact of the vital fluid in his daily life, from growing up in a household of five sisters and their monthly cycles to his enduring partnership with an HIV-positive man.

An Eye on Race: It''s as if the skinned potato, not my sliced finger, is bleeding. Were the cut anywhere else on my body I''d have it under the faucet by now or washed with soap, yet I persist in sucking it. The blood is warm, warmer than saliva. This is what There''s always a moment--less than a moment, actually; however long it takes an instinct to fire, as hand flies to mouth--when I think the blood will taste good an expectation I''d never have, it strikes me, for other bodily fluids: Okay, so it doesn''t taste good, but it doesn''t taste bad, either.

If it did, all creatures would be repulsed from licking clean their wounds. Blood''s no worse than a lick of sweat yet also not something to be savored. That it tastes faintly like metal, as some people say, is not an undeserved analogy; blood is iron-rich. Two-thirds of the body''s store of iron can be found there. Others say with great specificity that it tastes like a mouthful of change have they tasted mouthfuls of change? Yet both of these analogies are imprecise, for pennies have a different flavor than quarters, don''t they? And there''s a world of difference between the lip of an aluminum beer can and a sterling silver teaspoon.

I''m reminded of my high school friend Melaine, now a mother of three, who has worked for twenty years as a technician in a hospital surgical unit and has, to her profound regret, acquired a fine nose for blood. Like body odor, she tells me, everyone''s smells different; some blood is pungent and sickening, some almost fruity. She sees blood as a constantly brewing stew, a mix of red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets, all floating in plasma, the watery medium that carries nutrients to, and waste from, the body''s one hundred trillion cells.

This basic recipe is then often spiced with medications, alcohol, nicotine, or other ingredients.

Melaine thinks that each person''s blood is an olfactory signature, which leads me to think that no two samples would taste alike, either. According to historians, Roman gladiators drank the blood of vanquished foes to acquire their strength and courage a practice reputedly also followed by the nineteenth-century Indonesian headhunters, the Tolalaki, among other cannibals. But, if true, how exactly did the gladiators drink this blood: Lapping it off a felled man''s chest, perhaps?

In any event, why didn''t these victorious gladiators drink their own blood instead? They were the winners, after all. Nitpicking about how it was drunk, whose blood was braver, and so forth, however, is missing a larger point. What makes the gladiator behavior truly arresting is this: They didn''t fear contact with blood. On the contrary, they gloried in it. Even the spectators were allowed, on occasion, to rush the arena to join blood-drinking free-for-alls. Sated, a gladiator or spectator may have even taken some to later sell. Gladiator''s blood, both a cure for certain diseases and a good-luck talisman for new brides, was a valuable commodity.

Even so, in those days, the most prized blood of all was not that of a man but of a mythical creature, as found in the tale of Asclepius, god of medicine. Asclepius, the illegitimate child of a beautiful maiden and the god of light, Apollo, has one of the juiciest backstories in classical mythology.

He''d not even been born yet when his mother was slain by his father, who''d become enraged upon learning she had been unfaithful. Apollo snatched the baby from her womb and sent his son to be raised by a centaur named Chiron. From his aunt Athena, the goddess of war and wisdom, he received his most powerful potion: A single drop of her blood could either kill or cure a human.

If drawn from the left side of the Gorgon''s body, the blood brought instant death; if from the right side, it miraculously restored life. This duality was an especially prescient invention of ancient mythmakers, for we now understand in cellular detail how blood can both bear disease with deadly efficiency and save a person''s life, as with vaccinations or transfusions. Indeed, Asclepius revived a man named Hippolytus by giving him the precious fluid, which may now be viewed as the earliest-- albeit mythical--instance of a blood transfusion. Asclepius--no fool he--realized there was profit to be made from Gorgon''s blood: This unethical practice infuriated Zeus, king of the gods, who sent down a thunderbolt, killing the doctor.

Zeus cooled down, realized the overall good Asclepius had brought to humankind, and raised him to godhood. Asclepius went on to father five daughters, all personifications of healing, including Panacea, the divine cure-all.

See a Problem?

She reigns to this day, in the private domain of my household at least, as the goddess of minor kitchen mishaps. I invoke her name as I wind a Band-Aid around my finger. In practice, ancient physicians believed that blood was the dwelling place of the "Vital Spirit" that animated human beings--the stream in which emotion, character, and intelligence swam.

This life force was thought to be circulated by the heart, which was falsely assumed to function as the body''s governing organ what we now know as the role of the brain. I'm torn, I might bump this to 5 stars.

Five Quarts: A Personal and Natural History of Blood

The story is a little disjointed, with anecdotes thrown in, and small history lessons, all of which I enjoyed, but the flow felt bumpy. Overall, this is an excellent story of a man and his journey, learning about the history of blood science, and a little bit of the future. He takes us along for the ride. Dec 15, Seacalliope rated it really liked it. There were times I wished he'd had more science content, rather than personal and historical, because I'd previously read The Anatomist by Hayes and thought that was just a thoroughly satisfying book on every level.

But I think he had a lot of personal insight into the topic and covered the current day attitudes toward blood in an interesting way. Sep 11, Paulo Santos rated it really liked it. Another very interesting and most enjoyable book by Bill Hayes. I love the way he writes about medical subjects, extremely clear and knowledgeable - and I should know, since I'm a doctor myself - and how he intertwines his personal experiences and feelings in his narratives.

His writing is elegant, witty and endearing, and the book is full of interesting anecdotes and valuable information, not only on the history of our relation with blood across the centuries but also present day important issu Another very interesting and most enjoyable book by Bill Hayes. His writing is elegant, witty and endearing, and the book is full of interesting anecdotes and valuable information, not only on the history of our relation with blood across the centuries but also present day important issues, like the still recent AIDS history and what blood, its perils and values, mean to us I would like him to have also approached the Jehovah's Witnesses' particular attitude towards blood!

All in all, a very good book, and I recommend it, as his other books. Jun 04, John Treat rated it liked it. We don't have nearly enough of them. Hayes and I moved to Seattle at the same time, though he soon left for San Francisco and the heart of the catastrophe: May 02, Steve Kettmann rated it really liked it. My review published in the San Francisco Chronicle in Entertai My review published in the San Francisco Chronicle in Entertainment Weekly described his first book, "Sleep Demons," as "a graceful hybrid of a book that's half research treatise and half memoir," and that applies as well to "Five Quarts," a breezy ride of a book that is disarmingly nonchalant about leaping around through history and returning, always, to tales of Hayes' sisters and his longtime partner, Steve.

Not just any writer could make you care about a German scientist named Paul Ehrlich, who received the Nobel Prize in for his contributions to the development of immunology, which included developing what is now called chemotherapy. Hayes introduces Ehrlich into the narrative casually, mentioning that he coined the term "magic bullet," and then pans back to bring alive a more human picture of the man, leaning on a biography written by Ehrlich's former secretary Martha Marquardt. The man loved colors," Hayes tells us. What spring is to a parfumeur, colors were to Paul Ehrlich.

Though always a busy, busy man, Marquardt revealed, the doctor would still stop to extol the roar of yellows and reds in a bouquet of flowers. They 'would make him quite ecstatic,' Marquardt admitted. He's like a grade-school teacher who tricks the students into learning, by making it fun, for example, to think about the different types of white blood cells and what they do. By never, ever getting too technical, or too solemn, and connecting ideas with people wherever possible, Hayes equips even a casual reader with the knowledge to gain new insights into life, our bodies and how science can make more advances in fighting disease, especially HIV.

The devastating toll of the epidemic looms over the book, never far out of mind, but never dwelled on, either.

Hayes tells of his many years of doctor visits side-by-side with his longtime companion Steve, who is HIV positive. But such descriptions have a casually informative quality to them, as if he was describing a visit to Alcatraz. That's not to say dark notes do not find their way into the book, only that Hayes never lets gloominess take over, even in describing the closing of Muscle System, a gym on Hayes Street that was much more than just a gym.

It had such a mystique that Armistead Maupin wrote about it in his 'Tales of the City' series. Every beautiful man in San Francisco had a membership to this gym, it was said. Luckily, I later met one there: Steve, who'd moved here from Illinois in Muscle System functioned as the heart of the community, even though it was located a good mile from the Castro district. Each week, new notes were taped up at the front counter announcing yet another memorial service. The wide cast of colorful characters thinned and thinned, sometimes as if its members were merely vanishing into thin air.

This happens to be the spot in the narrative where Hayes introduces Paul Ehrlich, and the timing is everything: Coming as a distraction from the ringing sense of loss summed up by the abandoned lockers at the once-hot gym, the longish section on Ehrlich comes as a relief. So do sections on Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, an inveterate tinkerer, born in the Netherlands in , who designed his own small microscopes and glimpsed what he dubbed "little animals," bacteria and protozoans; Bram Stoker and the authors of other books exploring vampiric themes; and hemophilia and the royal families of Europe.

Hayes' ultimate theme can be boiled down to a simple, reassuring thought: We are not alone. That is, mysterious new ailments have always cropped up throughout human history, and a few creative scientists have always been there to fill in the gaps in human knowledge necessary to win the fight against the disease.

The only open question is how epic will be the human cost before the medical establishment can truly do that with HIV. A Day in the Life of Baseball in America. Jun 24, Anita rated it liked it Shelves: Part memoir, part science of blood. Some interesting facts and stories about blood. Jun 29, Dia rated it liked it. Who would think that a contemplation of blood would result in such a feel-good book?

I think, though, that any topic that Hayes were to contemplate is likely to turn into a feel-good book, as Hayes himself is so clearly and unpretentiously a loving, feel-good person. His compassion for his partner, his family, his larger community, and even for historical victims of disease and crime, are what make this book a sweet treat. On the other hand a smaller hand, to be sure , while reading this book Who would think that a contemplation of blood would result in such a feel-good book?

On the other hand a smaller hand, to be sure , while reading this book I sometimes recalled the declaration made by a college writing professor I once had, that "writers write to get revenge. It seems that Hayes really wanted to write about these people whom he loves -- and blood itself was just an excuse to do so. The historical and scientific forays didn't have as much heart, oftentimes repeating common knowledge or what could as well be found on Wikipedia.

When Hayes attempts to do original research in the form of touring labs and such, he quickly gives up on trying to understand what he sees and is told. In short, one who wants to actually learn about blood needs to read elsewhere -- and Hayes is kind enough to provide a bibliography to support the interested reader in doing so. In short, I would've liked more John McPhee here -- but if Hayes wants to go Bill Bryson on his readers, he should just go all the way. I read the book "Stiffs" a while ago an it was so well written that it turned me on to the slightly gory, off beat, human body stories.

This book does excel when he makes a solid connection between a personal or newsworthy event and history He spends a little too much time, in my opinion, focused on a small number of issues relating to blood. In particular, he focuses a lot on how blood and blood tests impact the gay community.

I am a supporter of gay rights and I read the book "Stiffs" a while ago an it was so well written that it turned me on to the slightly gory, off beat, human body stories. I am a supporter of gay rights and issues, and a lot of what he talked about was good, but he seemed to dwell on it a little too long to make this a main stream book. Feb 25, Laura rated it liked it Shelves: My opinion wavered a lot while reading this.

At first, I thought I would enjoy the combination of memoir and medical history, then I found it distracting, then in the end I was okay with it again. It's a strange approach to a subject. Hayes is a passionate, intelligent man, who has clearly does his research and has a lot to share about his life and experiences. As a fan of both memoir and medical non-fiction, I really can't quite put my finger on why I didn't love this. I've another of his books My opinion wavered a lot while reading this.

I've another of his books on my shelf, waiting to be read, and while this didn't put me off his work, I can't say I'm in a rush to read more by him. Clearly my feelings about this book are a bit muddled. Feb 23, Kristine rated it really liked it Shelves: The reason the start date is really hazy is that I usually read this book before the start of ASL class, so, yay, school is distracting.

The tone and mood of Five Quarts is what sparked and kept my attention throughout the entire book, particularily when it came to linking comic books and myth to biology and medical science. I completely have interest and concern for Bill and Steve and knowing their stories and thos Five Quarts by Bill Hayes, a Kindle book I began reading, oof, in early February.

I completely have interest and concern for Bill and Steve and knowing their stories and those of the medicial professionals of this book has kindled a new interest in phlebotomy. Jan 05, David Meyer added it. This was a fascinating book. I knew when I started it that it would be a detailed history of blood. It ended up talking about how different cultures have embraced, studied, and thought about blood throughout history. More interesting though, and what I didn't realize was that the author is a homosexual man whose partner is HIV positive.

More from SDReader

With this, he skillfully switched between discussing the past and discussing his personal experiences with blood and all that it means to him and his partner as This was a fascinating book. With this, he skillfully switched between discussing the past and discussing his personal experiences with blood and all that it means to him and his partner as well as the author's 5 sisters. I saw this man speak at UCSF following the release of his most recent book, "The Anatomist", and immediately went in search of his books.

This enthralling account of what we used to think blood was, how we discovered what it really does, and how we have come to fear it in the modern age really captured me. Also, the author writes about his personal history with such affect, I would be happy to just be reading his auto-biography.

He is a touching writer and I cant wait to read more of his books. I loved some bits of it, but much of it didn't interest me. The personal memoir wasn't compelling enough to involve me and Hayes' "I'm too dumb to understand this sciencey talk, so it's okay if you don't either, reader" act was a little annoying.

I did love everything vampire-related, though. And a lot of the historical anecdotes were fun, if rehash of common knowledge. I would definitely recommend this as a motivational and educational read for anyone whose life is touched by HIV. A lot of bond I loved some bits of it, but much of it didn't interest me.

• Yemen: Profile with Comprehensive Information, History, and Analysis - Politics, Economy, Military -
• Ker-Splash!: Recreational Power Boaters Guide (Nonfiction in a Fictional Style Book 2)
• TEN FUN THINGS TO DO IN PENSACOLA
• Nightmare Inc.
• Wyoming Wilde, Book 3, Wild Wyoming Series
• Beyond Consequences, Logic and Control: Volume 2
• Walking with the True Vine