Just as an expert / in the taste and colour of wine / will gain much / by being aware of the chemistry / that underlies those qualities, / so each perspective on the body / can potentially enhance the others.

And yet every scientific tool, / from microscopes to mathematics, / and every aspect of the body, / from the brain to the microorganism, / requires such depth of expertise / that this tends not to happen: / we tend to study the human body in silos, / each community sectioned from the others / by its own specialised vocabulary.

Research communities may be dedicated / to one type of scientific tool / or a specific component of the body, / such as one type of cell.

How different types of cell communicate with one another / becomes its own specialist topic.

Even simple forms of life on Earth / are now rarely studied as a whole, / and the human body / is evidently much more complex.

As long ago as 1890, / The Times newspaper commented / that knowledge / 'had already become too vast / to be manageable'.

Today, / nobody is an expert / in the whole of anything.