快猫短视频

THIS is a book about a concept. Despite its subtitle, the book explains little about diseases and even less about the people who get them and the people who treat them. Instead, the authors, scientists David Isenberg and John Morrow, choose to focus on 鈥渁utoimmunity鈥�, the condition that occurs when for some reason the body goes to war with itself.

As long as scientists remain hidden in the reassuring tall grass of the laboratory, they are protected by their jargon and their shared world view. Upon entering the exposed world of popular science writing, however, scientists are faced with a dilemma: how to create an entertaining and educational road map of their discipline.

There are several possible solutions to this problem, but unfortunately Isenberg and Morrow, a rheumatologist at University College London and an immunologist at the Medical College of St Bartholomew鈥檚 Hospital, University of London, have chosen to lead us halfway into the thickets of their terminology and leave us there. The result is a barely translated medical text at least two removes from the living, breathing reader.

The topic is not to blame. Autoimmune diseases, which include rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and some forms of diabetes, affect as many as 1 in 20 people. Sufferers often spend many years struggling with symptoms ranging from painful, swollen joints to gradual, grinding paralysis. Plenty of drama there. And modern biology has come up with a number of promising if barely tested treatments, such as swallowing small amounts of proteins, that could dramatically alter the lives of patients. But these biotechnology-based approaches are relegated to a few pages.

The book鈥檚 flaws begin with its structure. Chapter 1 (of six) asks, 鈥淲hat exactly is the immune system?鈥� and Chapter 2 asks, 鈥淗ow does it actually work?鈥� The authors answer with seemingly endless lists of the complex immune system鈥檚 many components. The third chapter addresses the factors involved in autoimmunity and the fourth explores how the diseases develop. A more sensible approach would have dealt with each topic disease by disease, since the average reader is likely to come looking for information on a particular illness.

Friendly Fire鈥檚 few high spots appear in the last two chapters. We learn, for instance, that the term 鈥渄iabetes鈥�, first used in the second century AD, means 鈥渢o run through a siphon鈥�, a reference to the copious amounts of urine produced by diabetics. And rheumatoid arthritis, the authors report, is relatively recent in origin, at least in Europe. Some even believe that early explorers brought it back from the New World, and others claim that Botticelli鈥檚 Venus bears the swollen finger joints characteristic of the disease.

In those last two chapters, the authors finally address particular diseases, their symptoms, treatments and complications. Among the most useful features is an informative, if noncomprehensive, list of specific drugs and their side effects.

But the preceding chapters are slow going, as in this typical passage: 鈥淐omplete or even partial absence of the second component (C2) of complement is a major risk factor for developing autoimmune disease, in particular systemic lupus erythematosus and myositis.鈥� Missing is any explanation of how the reader can use this information, nor is there a clever analogy to explain why this fact interests the physician or basic researcher.

Even worse, the book鈥檚 early chapters read like a bad Russian novel: endless characters with long names and no clear reason to be included. Macrophages, eosinophils, T cells and cytokines all make an appearance, and we are apparently expected to memorise their significance until they reappear several chapters later. The guiding, explaining and hand-holding that goes on in a typical 快猫短视频 feature is sorely lacking.