Nuts and Bolts of Life [Hardcover]

Paul Heiney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 19, 2002

Paul Heiney describes here how one man - defiant, ingenious and stubborn - worked under impossible conditions in a country under the merciless occupation of Nazism to solve the problem of kidney failure and to change the course of human history. That man was Willem Kolff, aged 88 at the time of this book's publication. Tormented by the unnecessary deaths from kidney failure, Kolff determined to use mechanical ingenuity to purify blood. Working with sausage skins and an improbable collection of parts scavenged from factories under the nose of the German occupying forces, he completed the first kidney machine in 1944. It was a milestone in medical history: it is estimated that as many as half a million people in the world today owe their lives to this single invention. Kolff continued his career with pioneering work on the artificial heart. This book, written with Dr Kolff's closest co-operation and family records, celebrates that central story of courage and obsession, and its journey from the old, war-torn world to the new. It explains the science in accessible terms, and explores some of the human stories which developed along the way: the lives prolonged, new chances given to patients as the age of transplantation dawned, and the relationship between medical scientists and the army of technicians who make possible that strangest of 20th-century treatments - the circulation and purifying of the blood outside the human body.

Editorial Reviews

Review

One of the great untold stories of medical endeavour: how Willem Kolff, now 88, solved the problem of kidney failure and changed the course of human history. Written by writer and broadcaster Paul Heiney with the cooperation of Dr Kolff and family records.

About the Author

Paul Heiney is a well-known writer, broadcaster and journalist. His wide-ranging television credits include That's Life, Radio 1's Newsbeat, Radio 4's Today programme and continues to write for the Times. He is the author of several books including Pulling Punches (Methuen 1990), Home Farm (Dorling Kindersley, 1998), and two novels. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Sutton Publishing (September 19, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0750928948
• ISBN-13: 978-0750928946
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,841,455 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a brilliant 20th century inventor, March 24, 2004

By 

Rebecca Brown "rebeccasreads" (Clallam Bay, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Nuts and Bolts of Life: William Kolff and the Invention of the Kidney Machine (Paperback)

In THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF LIFE Paul Heiney introduces us to a lively 90-something gentleman gleefully showing off something he invented -- a folding wooden bench. When Paul also learns that this spry fellow was the inventor of the first successful kidney dialysis machine back in the days before the (...)occupation of Holland, as well as a member of the American team which created the first artificial heart, he is moved to write the biography of Willem "Pim" Kolff.

Nowadays, kidney dialysis machines are so much a part of the medical profession, it is difficult to grasp what life had been like before their invention for people with kidney failure -- a sentence of a horrible, complicated death. As Paul Heiney writes in his Introduction about his first visit to the Kidney Unit in a British hospital: "Like the organs themselves, which lurk around the back of the body, inconspicuously keeping us alive, kidney units are often at the rear of hospitals, taken for granted and expected to get on with their routine task, basking in little glory." (Page 2)

RebeccasReads highly recommends THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF LIFE as a conversational biography, well-researched, rich in scientific details & the dramatic life & times of this venerable inventor.

4.0 out of 5 stars A story that should be told, October 29, 2009

By 

azure "single woman" (Danbury, CT) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Nuts and Bolts of Life: William Kolff and the Invention of the Kidney Machine (Paperback)

Everyone can name people who took millions of lives, but few of us know the story of a man who has saved millions of lives. This is a great look at a man who was truly heroic.