Darwin’s Heart

About the Book

A middle-aged man dying of heart failure consents to an experimental artificial heart. The post-op course was stormy with no improvement. His wish was to die at home, so he was discharged. At the funeral, his wife presented the doctors with a lawsuit, saying “You buried my husband without his heart.” The doctors found his heart, put it back in his chest, and the lawsuit vanished. This case had a profound effect on the author’s thinking and conduct as a physician cardiologist. Dr. Weiss realized doctors focused on the heart as a pump, rather than the symbolic heart and what it represents. This book surveys how a host of ancient cultures, religions, and civilizations envisioned the homo sapiens heart before the advent of modern medicine, and how that understanding will preserve our species.

About the Author

Dr. Morris Weiss Jr. graduated from the University of Louisville School of Medicine in 1958, has specialty boards in internal medicine and cardiology, and just completed on June 28, 2022, his sixtieth year in practice.