The Beating Heart

An investigation into the human heart by a distinguished cardiologist, exploring representations of the heart and how our understanding of its function has developed over 2,500 years.

In The Beating Heart, Robin Choudhury explores how the heart has been represented over time and across cultures. He investigates the interplay between the heart depictions of successive eras and the prevailing cultural discourse—religious, social, philosophical—of each. In parallel, he considers how the ‘scientific’ understanding of the function of the heart has unfolded over 2,500 years, from the observations of Aristotle, through detailed anatomical descriptions beginning in the Renaissance, to the emergence of experimental physiology in the seventeenth century, culminating in the twentieth century in full understanding of the molecular and cellular processes by which the heart beats autonomously.

The Beating Heart is a beautifully illustrated journey of discovery across four millennia of human history, in the company of an author whose medical knowledge of the heart is matched by his fascination with the visual arts.