14 february 2011Down in the basement, they were examining the internal organs not of beasts and fowls, but of men and women. The histopathologist, Morgan Freeman in half-moon glasses, looked at us gravely and brought from his bucket a herniated section of intestine, possibly cancerous. The students were bent over their notes, apart from the boy who'd given up taking notes a hour ago. Dr Freeman apologised for formalin's reduction of the specimen's prettiness, but it was pretty enough, the curves and involutions. All that is foul smell and blood in a bag. Upstairs there was a machine which carried out 30 different types of blood test an hour on microlitre samples. A community of hundreds of tiny robots working together and talking to each other nineteen to the dozen. Forget the Pyramid of Cheops, forget the Great Wall of China, this is the real human achievement. Say to your doctor, I feel tired, and he and everyone will crank up a whole building full of the People Who Know and the machines and staff will work tirelessly, three shifts a day, to help you. For free, if you live in the UK. Think about that next time, subconscious.
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