Kidney transplants seem so routine now. But the first one was like Lindbergh's flight across the ocean.
Joseph MurrayRead
The slow rejection of the foreign skin grafts fascinated me. How could the host distinguish another person's skin from his own?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the body's ability to identify foreign tissues, particularly in the context of skin grafts.
In this quote, Joseph Murray expresses his intrigue at the biological processes involved when a body rejects foreign skin grafts. It raises profound questions about identity, the nature of self, and how our immune system perceives what is 'us' versus 'not us', highlighting the complex interplay between the body and the concept of ownership over one's own biological matter.
Themes
IdentitySkinRejectionBiologicalGraft
In practice
Example use cases
In a medical seminar discussing organ transplants, this quote emphasizes the importance of understanding immune response.
More from Joseph Murray
All quotes βOne of my surgical giant friends had in his operating room a sign "If the operation is difficult, you aren't doing it right." What he meant was, you have to plan every operation You cannot ever be casual You have to realize that any operation is a potential fatality.
Joseph MurrayRead
Similar quotes
If everything in chemistry is explained in a satisfactory manner without the help of phlogiston, it is by that reason alone infinitely probable that the principle does not exist; that it is a hypothetical body, a gratuitous supposition; indeed, it is in the principles of good logic, not to multiply bodies without necessity.
Antoine LavoisierRead
That which is not measurable is not science. That which is not physics is stamp collecting.
Ernest RutherfordRead
And anyone who thinks they can talk about quantum theory without feeling dizzy hasn't yet understood the first thing about it.
Niels BohrRead
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
Albert EinsteinRead
It will be another million years, at least, before we understand the primes.
Paul ErdosRead
Physics is the only profession in which prophecy is not only accurate but routine.
Neil Degrasse TysonRead