"Includes a reprint of King's "Hearts in Atlantis," the fictional story of a U. Maine freshman; an essay by King about his years at UM (1966-70); reprints of King's college newspaper column; personal narratives by King's fellow students and friends; and a gallery of photographs"--

One of the most time-consuming tasks in clinical medicine is seeking the opinions of specialist colleagues. There is a pressure not only to make referrals appropriate but also to summarize the case in the language of the specialist. This book explains basic physiologic and pathophysiologic mechanisms of cardiovascular disease in a straightforward manner, gives guidelines as to when referral is appropriate, and, uniquely, explains what the specialist is likely to do. It is ideal for any hospital doctor, generalist, or even senior medical student who may need a cardiology opinion, or for that ma.

This presentation describes various aspects of the regulation of tissue oxygenation, including the roles of the circulatory system, respiratory system, and blood, the carrier of oxygen within these components of the cardiorespiratory system. The respiratory system takes oxygen from the atmosphere and transports it by diffusion from the air in the alveoli to the blood flowing through the pulmonary capillaries. The cardiovascular system then moves the oxygenated blood from the heart to the microcirculation of the various organs by convection, where oxygen is released from hemoglobin in the red blood cells and moves to the parenchymal cells of each tissue by diffusion. Oxygen that has diffused into cells is then utilized in the mitochondria to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the energy currency of all cells. The mitochondria are able to produce ATP until the oxygen tension or PO2 on the cell surface falls to a critical level of about 4–5 mm Hg. Thus, in order to meet the energetic needs of cells, it is important to maintain a continuous supply of oxygen to the mitochondria at or above the critical PO2 . In order to accomplish this desired outcome, the cardiorespiratory system, including the blood, must be capable of regulation to ensure survival of all tissues under a wide range of circumstances. The purpose of this presentation is to provide basic information about the operation and regulation of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems, as well as the properties of the blood and parenchymal cells, so that a fundamental understanding of the regulation of tissue oxygenation is achieved.

In an explosion of love's metaphors, Fowler's debut collection of stories takes on American fabulism with a cast of unexpected heroines in the narratives of life and loss--women whose hearts fall out at public malls, women whose bodies bloom with changing seasons, women who sprout blades or have multiple eyes, sleep as snakes, or birth saints like lapis lazuli babies.

Bettina L. Knapp explores the universal and eternal nature of fourteen French fairy tales, including the medieval Romance of Mélusine, Charles Perrault's seventeenth-century versions of Sleeping Beauty and Bluebeard, and Jean Cocteau's film version of Beauty and the Beast. She demonstrates the relevance of these fairy tales for modern readers, both for the psychological problems they address and for the positive resolutions they offer. Through her careful examination of these tales, Knapp shows that people in past eras suffered from such supposedly "modern" problems as alienation and identity crises and went through harrowing ordeals before experiencing some sort of fulfillment. By imparting the age-old wisdom embedded in these works, French Fairy Tales triggers new insights into psychological problems and offers helpful ways of dealing with them.

It is with great pleasure that we here present Artificial Heart 4 (proceedings of the 4th international symposium on artificial heart and assist devices). The symposium was held in Tokyo, Japan, on August 7 and 8, 1992 under the patronage of Mr. Hiromitsu Yoshioka, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Tokyo Women's Medical College. Artificial heart 4 consists of the papers presented in nine sessions: Oral Presentations A to E, Forums 1 to 10, and nine lectures by invited guest speakers from the United States and Europe. In this volume, papers from two new sessions, sessions IV and VII, entitled New Approaches, were prepared for devices and systems developed according to new ideas. Twenty-one papers in these two sessions were presented in five Forums (3, 4, 7, 8, and 9). Session VI was provided to deal with heart transplantation, which is now closely related to both ventricular assist systems (VAS) and the total artificial heart (TAH). In this session, papers by two guest speakers from major heart transplantation centers in Europe were included.

The secret history of our most vital organ: the human heart. The Man Who Touched His Own Heart tells the raucous, gory, mesmerizing story of the heart, from the first "explorers" who dug up cadavers and plumbed their hearts' chambers, through the first heart surgeries -- which had to be completed in three minutes before death arrived -- to heart transplants and the latest medical efforts to prolong our hearts' lives, almost defying nature in the process. Thought of as the seat of our soul, then as a mysteriously animated object, the heart is still more a mystery than it is understood. Why do most animals only get one billion beats? (And how did modern humans get to over two billion, effectively letting us live out two lives?) Why are sufferers of gingivitis more likely to have heart attacks? Why do we often undergo expensive procedures when cheaper ones are just as effective? What do Da Vinci, Mary Shelley, and contemporary Egyptian archaeologists have in common? And what does it really feel like to touch your own heart, or to have someone else's beating inside your chest? Rob Dunn's fascinating history of our hearts brings us deep inside the science, history, and stories of the four chambers we depend on most.