Our Perfectly Imperfect Bodies

MY BODY IS nearly perfect.

- Richard Glover

Well, not only mine-yours, too. Consider, for one thing, how your fingernail is tough enough to scrape off the blackened residue from the bottom of an enamel pot, yet soft enough that it doesn't leave a scratch. Despite many decades of work by the manufacturers of scouring pads, brushes and sponges, no other material has been found that so perfectly performs this simple task.

The human body has been getting a bad rap lately. Covid-19 owes much of its power to the body's occasional tendency to do battle with itself. The coronavirus can set off what's called a cytokine storm, a sometimes-fatal overreaction of the immune system. In the effort to repel the invading army, the body blows up its own munitions dump.

So in times like these, it might be worth remembering all the ways that, most of the time, the body does a tip-top job.

For example, your nose is full of tiny hairs that catch dust in the air before it enters the lungs. Your throat rarely malfunctions, even though it's required to do unlikely double-service as a highway for both air and food.