scientists, who discovered that the use of insulin produced by the pancreas could stave off the ravages of the disease by helping diabetics keep their blood sugars at healthier levels.
Every part of our body craves blood. No part of us can do without it. But the body is a sensitive beast. It is humbling and striking to realize how acutely the body reacts to the tiniest fluctuations in the chemical composition of the blood. Through the natural physical processes of blood, we see the march of human life. We see fathers passing blood legacy on to sons; mothers mourning their unborn children when the blood mistakes the fetus for a foreign body; a nation in a test tube of blood â equipped with citizens working to keep the âeconomyâ circulating, a government to maintain our infrastructure, an army to defend against foreign attackers. Blood, indeed, is the stuff of life.
BLOOD IS MEANT TO REFLECT our humanity. In the Old Testament, the lambâs blood on the doorposts of the Hebrews signified the innocence and the vulnerability of the Israelites in the time of Egyptian slavery. Indeed it inspires the Jewish tradition of Passover, celebrated by millions today. A soldier, having been injured on the battlefield but having survived to return home later, is said to have shed blood for his or her country â and this is meant to confer valour and honour on the soldier. We are supposed to respect him or her more, precisely because they have lost blood for their nation, or for the goals of their people.
We now know that people have different blood types, but the fundamental sameness of our blood â its colour, texture, and functions â is supposed to link us as human beings. This is what William Shakespeare says in creating the character Shylock in his play The Merchant of Venice. Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, is intent on extracting a pound of flesh from the defaulting debtor Antonio, who has previously insulted him. However, as the play unfolds, the tables turn against Shylock. He learns that he will not be allowed to cause any loss of blood in taking Antonioâs pound of flesh. In addition, Shylock is accused of conspiring against the life of a Venetian citizen . When his situation looks desperate and he is anxious to establish that he is just the same as those who would accuse him, Shylock â a Jew â says to Salarino: âHath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?â Shylockâs plea does not save him from defeat and humiliation: he must forfeit his property, will his estate to a daughter who eloped with a Christian suitor, and convert to Christianity.
Blood filters through our consciousness thanks to Shakespeare and countless other writers, and we feel its rhythms the same way we sense the natural beauty of the iambic pentameter. Blood resides in the drumbeat of our hearts, but it is also deeply embedded in the tempo of our language.
What, after all, is a bleeding heart but a contemptuous reference to a person who cares too quickly and superficially for the plight of others? If you are bloody-minded, you concern yourself overly with gruesome matters. When we think of blood sports, we have in mind the activities that celebrate not just killing but the spilling of blood: the way foxes might be torn about in a hunt, or the way picadors stab a bull so many times that it is weakened and all its blood streams across its ribs and onto the earthen ring in the bullfight. A crowd that calls out for blood is your collection of rabid hockey fans when a scrap breaks out on the ice, or the instantly formed circle of high school kids around a pair of fighting students, each group hungry to see blood spill. If you are a cold-blooded murderer,
Every part of our body craves blood. No part of us can do without it. But the body is a sensitive beast. It is humbling and striking to realize how acutely the body reacts to the tiniest fluctuations in the chemical composition of the blood. Through the natural physical processes of blood, we see the march of human life. We see fathers passing blood legacy on to sons; mothers mourning their unborn children when the blood mistakes the fetus for a foreign body; a nation in a test tube of blood â equipped with citizens working to keep the âeconomyâ circulating, a government to maintain our infrastructure, an army to defend against foreign attackers. Blood, indeed, is the stuff of life.
BLOOD IS MEANT TO REFLECT our humanity. In the Old Testament, the lambâs blood on the doorposts of the Hebrews signified the innocence and the vulnerability of the Israelites in the time of Egyptian slavery. Indeed it inspires the Jewish tradition of Passover, celebrated by millions today. A soldier, having been injured on the battlefield but having survived to return home later, is said to have shed blood for his or her country â and this is meant to confer valour and honour on the soldier. We are supposed to respect him or her more, precisely because they have lost blood for their nation, or for the goals of their people.
We now know that people have different blood types, but the fundamental sameness of our blood â its colour, texture, and functions â is supposed to link us as human beings. This is what William Shakespeare says in creating the character Shylock in his play The Merchant of Venice. Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, is intent on extracting a pound of flesh from the defaulting debtor Antonio, who has previously insulted him. However, as the play unfolds, the tables turn against Shylock. He learns that he will not be allowed to cause any loss of blood in taking Antonioâs pound of flesh. In addition, Shylock is accused of conspiring against the life of a Venetian citizen . When his situation looks desperate and he is anxious to establish that he is just the same as those who would accuse him, Shylock â a Jew â says to Salarino: âHath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?â Shylockâs plea does not save him from defeat and humiliation: he must forfeit his property, will his estate to a daughter who eloped with a Christian suitor, and convert to Christianity.
Blood filters through our consciousness thanks to Shakespeare and countless other writers, and we feel its rhythms the same way we sense the natural beauty of the iambic pentameter. Blood resides in the drumbeat of our hearts, but it is also deeply embedded in the tempo of our language.
What, after all, is a bleeding heart but a contemptuous reference to a person who cares too quickly and superficially for the plight of others? If you are bloody-minded, you concern yourself overly with gruesome matters. When we think of blood sports, we have in mind the activities that celebrate not just killing but the spilling of blood: the way foxes might be torn about in a hunt, or the way picadors stab a bull so many times that it is weakened and all its blood streams across its ribs and onto the earthen ring in the bullfight. A crowd that calls out for blood is your collection of rabid hockey fans when a scrap breaks out on the ice, or the instantly formed circle of high school kids around a pair of fighting students, each group hungry to see blood spill. If you are a cold-blooded murderer,
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