After countless generations of making: “Vive la Difference,” New York Review of Books, May 12, 2005.
At its current rate of deterioration: “Sorry, Guys: Your Y Chromosome May Be Doomed,” Smithsonian, Jan. 19, 2018.
humans don’t actually reproduce: Mukherjee, Gene, 357.
How many people are unfaithful: “Infidels,” New Yorker, Dec. 18–25, 2017.
In one study, the number of sexual partners: Spiegelhalter, Sex by Numbers, 35.
Because of funding problems, only 3,432 people: American Journal of Public Health, July 1996, 1037–40; “What, How Often, and with Whom?,” London Review of Books, Aug. 3, 1995.
leaving Spiegelhalter to wonder what exactly: Spiegelhalter, Sex by Numbers, 2.
the median time for sex: Ibid., 218–20.
A chimpanzee and a human: “Bonobos Join Chimps as Closest Human Relatives,” Science News, June 13, 2012.
They are more vulnerable to infection: Bribiescas, Men, 174–76.
“Vaginal secretions [were] the only bodily fluid”: Roach, Bonk, 12.
It is named for Ernst Gräfenberg: American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Aug. 2001, 359.
Until the early twentieth century, “clitoris”: Oxford English Dictionary.
The uterus normally weighs two ounces: Cassidy, Birth, 80.
many mammals get along perfectly well: Bainbridge, Teenagers, 254–55.
There is also a great deal of uncertainty: “Skin Deep,” New York Review of Books, Oct. 7, 1999.
Authorities seem to be universally agreed: Morris, Body Watching, 216; Spiegelhalter, Sex by Numbers, 216–17.
CHAPTER 18: IN THE BEGINNING: CONCEPTION AND BIRTH
The chances of a successful fertilization: “Not from Venus, Not from Mars,” New York Times, Feb. 25–26, 2017, international edition.
A meta-analysis in the journal: “Yes, Sperm Counts Have Been Steadily Declining,” Smithsonian.com, July 26, 2017.
“a common class of chemical”: “Are Your Sperm in Trouble?,” New York Times, March 11, 2017.
The number of spermatozoa produced: Lents, Human Errors, 100.
by the age of thirty-five a woman’s stock of eggs: “The Divorce of Coitus from Reproduction,” New York Review of Books, Sept. 25, 2014.
Without this, the rate of birth defects: Roberts, Incredible Unlikeliness of Being, 344.
About 80 percent of mothers-to-be: “What Causes Morning Sickness?,” New York Times, Aug. 3, 2018.
The only truly reliable test: Oakley, Captured Womb, 17.
Medical students in England weren’t required: Epstein, Get Me Out, 38.
Women were sometimes bled: Oakley, Captured Womb, 22.
In 1906, an estimated 150,000 American women: Sengoopta, Most Secret Quintessence of Life, 16–18.
“God knows the number of women”: Cassidy, Birth, 60.
sterilize the air around patients: “The Gruesome, Bloody World of Victorian Surgery,” Atlantic, Oct. 22, 2017.
As late as 1932, one mother in every 238 died: Oakley, Captured Womb, 62.
It was the rise of penicillin: Cassidy, Birth, 61.
Yet American women are 70 percent: Economist, July 18, 2015, 41.
“the least understood organ in the human body”: Scientific American, Oct. 2017, 38.
“Women in labour have pretty much”: Nature, July 14, 2016, S6.
people born by C-section: “The Cesarean-Industrial Complex,” Atlantic, Sept. 2014.
more than 60 percent of Cesareans are done: “Stemming the Global Caesarean Section Epidemic,” Lancet, Oct. 13, 2018.
the rush to clean up babies: Blaser, Missing Microbes, 95.
B. infantis, an important microbe: Yong, I Contain Multitudes, 130.
by the age of one the average baby: New Yorker, Oct. 22, 2012, 33.
There is some evidence that a nursing mother: Ben-Barak, Why Aren’t We Dead Yet?, 68.
CHAPTER 19: NERVES AND PAIN
Repeat the experiences, and the patterns: “Show Me Where It Hurts,” Nature, July 14, 2016.
“Pain only emerges when the brain”: Interview with Professor Irene Tracey, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, Sept. 18, 2018.
The person who first identified nociceptors: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. “Sherrington, Sir Charles Scott”; Nature Neuroscience, June 2010, 429–30.
More than half of spinal cord injuries: Annals of Medicine, New Yorker, Jan. 25, 2016.
Pain, like the nervous system itself: “A Name for Their Pain,” Nature, July 14, 2016; Foreman, Nation in Pain, 22–24.
the word is a corruption of the French demi-craine: “Headache,” American Journal of Medicine, Jan. 2018; “Why Migraines Strike,” Scientific American, Aug. 2008; “A General Feeling of Disorder,” New York Review of Books, April 23, 2015.
“Donnerwetter, so it has”: Dormandy, Worst of Evils, 483.
But equally pain is decreased: Nature Neuroscience, April 2008, 314.
Just having a sympathetic and loving partner: Wolf, Body Quantum, vii.
In one experiment done by Tracey: Nature Neuroscience, April 2008, 314.
about 40 percent of adult Americans: Foreman, Nation in Pain, 3.
Altogether chronic pain affects more people: “The Neuroscience of Pain,” New Yorker, July 2, 2018.
“deaf and blind to other people”: Daudet, In the Land of Pain, 15.
“The drugs we have relieve 50 percent”: “Name for Their Pain.”
Between 1999 and 2014, by one estimate: Chemistry World, July 2017, 28; Economist, Oct. 28, 2017, 41; “Opioid Nation,” New York Review of Books, Dec. 6, 2018.
opioid fatalities have led to a rise in organ donations: “The Disturbing Reasons Behind the Spike in Organ Donations,” Washington Post, April 17, 2018.
one doctor got good results: “Feel the Burn,” London Review of Books, Sept. 30, 1999.
Even so, 59 percent of those tested: “Honest Fakery,” Nature, July 14, 2016.