Zoobiquity: The Astonishing Connection Between Human and Animal Health - Paperback

by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz (Author), Kathryn Bowers (Author)

A revelatory depiction of what animals can teach us about the human body and mind, exploring how animal and human commonality can be used to diagnose, treat, and heal patients of all species.

"Full of fascinating stories." --Atul Gawande, M.D.

Do animals overeat? Get breast cancer? Have fainting spells? Inspired by an eye-opening consultation at the Los Angeles Zoo, which revealed that a monkey experienced the same symptoms of heart failure as human patients, cardiologist Barbara Natterson-Horowitz embarked upon a project that would reshape how she practiced medicine.

Beginning with the above questions, she began informally researching every affliction that she encountered in humans to learn whether it happened with animals, too. And usually, it did: dinosaurs suffered from brain cancer, koalas can catch chlamydia, reindeer seek narcotic escape in hallucinogenic mushrooms, stallions self-mutilate, and gorillas experience clinical depression.

Natterson-Horowitz and science writer Kathryn Bowers have dubbed this pan-species approach to medicine zoobiquity.

New York Times Bestseller

An O, The Oprah Magazine "Summer Reading" Pick

A Discover Magazine Best Book

Author Biography

Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, M.D., earned her degrees at Harvard and the University of California, San Francisco. She is a cardiology professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and serves on the medical advisory board of the Los Angeles Zoo as a cardiovascular consultant. Her writing has appeared in many scientific and medical publications.

Kathryn Bowers was a staff editor at The Atlantic and a writer and producer at CNN International. She has edited and written popular and academic books and teaches a course at UCLA on medical narrative.