The damage that the human body can survive these days is as awesome as it is horrible: crushing, burning, bombing, a burst aorta, a ruptured colon, a massive heart attack, rampaging infection. These maladies were once uniformly fatal. Now survival is commonplace, and a substantial part of the credit goes to the abilities intensive care units have developed to take artificial control of failing bodies. Typically, this requires a panoply of technology—a mechanical ventilator and perhaps a tracheostomy tube if the lungs have failed, an aortic balloon pump if the heart has given out, a dialysis
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