Prometheus

We spent about a week or so on the liver. The liver is interesting because of its immense regenerative capacity. You can lose up to 70% of your liver and it'll grow right back. In fact, this makes living-donor liver transplants possible. You can donate one lobe of your liver to someone with cirrhosis or acute liver failure. You keep half, they get half. Within months, both of you will have completely regenerated livers. It's pretty amazing.

In the Greek myth of Prometheus, the Titan was punished by Zeus for giving fire to the humans. He was chained to Mt. Caucasus where an eagle named Ethon would eat his liver every day. Each night, Prometheus' liver would grow back just to be eaten by the eagle the next day. It is fascinating to wonder whether the Greeks knew about the regenerative ability of the liver. After all, why did they pick the liver? Why would it grow back each night? And when one thinks about the origins of medicine, one might think all the way back to the Greeks.

(Image: Prometheus Bound by Nicolas-Sébastien Adam, 1762)