Breath Taking

An expert in pulmonary medicine shares a wide-ranging exploration of the human lung: the organ that explains our origins and holds the keys to our future. We take an average of 7.5 million breaths a year and some 600 million in our lifetime, and what goes on in our body each time oxygen is taken in and carbon dioxide expelled is nothing short of miraculous. “Our lungs are the lynchpin between our bodies and the outside world,” writes pulmonologist Michael Stephen. And yet, we too often take our