Gavin Francis leads us through a cultural map of the body – an adventure in what it means to be human. Drawing on his own experiences as a physician and writer, he blends first-hand case studies with reflections on the way the body has been imagined and portrayed over millennia.

A serious motorbike crash brings a young soldier to A&E with a badly injured shoulder. His arm is paralysed, and may not recover.

Since Homer wrote the Iliad almost three thousand years ago, military strategists have understood the power of wounds to the brachial plexus, the network of nerves behind our collarbones. Our ‘arms’ are both parts of our body, and weapons of war.

Read by Bill Paterson
Abridged by Jo Coombs

Produced by Hannah Marshall
A Loftus production first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015. Show less