ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION A friend of mine once had the misfortune to suffer acute appendicitis and be admitted to hospital for emergency surgery. The operation was uneventful and wholly successful, my friend recovered in a manner and at a rate that was typical for his age (he was at the time in his forties) and he was discharged, went home, and soon resumed normal daily life. Notwithstanding the original misfortune, the whole episode was otherwise entirely unremarkable from a medical viewpoint. However, telling me about it later, my friend described the familiar signs and symptoms of his digestive system starting to work again as he convalesced and, as he put it, from his perspective as a biologist, ‘It was wonderful to observe my digestive system – my body – coming back to life.’
