內容簡介
比爾‧蓋茲
2019夏季選書
繼《Bad Blood 惡血》之後，比爾蓋茲再度推薦血液相關選書！
《Nine Pints》
九品脱
血液背後神秘的金錢與醫學
一場讓人驚奇的血液探索之旅：
血液是人們賴以維生、令人崇畏的珍貴物質。
是未來科學的希望，卻也帶來了盤根錯節的利益糾葛。
血液可以乘載一個人的生命；也可使人致死。可能枉流；也可是比石油更珍貴的商品。能救命；也能傳遞致命疾病。
每個人的身上，平均擁有九品脫的血液量。
但很多人卻不了解它，甚至連自己血型為何都不清楚。
無論中西方，女性每月排出的血液皆被視為禁忌。因無法理解而產生恐懼，成為被妖魔化的生理特徵。
《The Big Necessity》作者Rose George擅長處理日常中微小、卻影響巨大的議題。在本書中，她向讀者介紹古今中外關於血液的大小事。
從古代實行的放血術，一路探索到現代用來快速檢測癌症和其他重大疾病的血液檢測法。同時，她也介紹二戰期間，建立世界首次大規模輸血系統的名人Janet Vaughan。以及號稱「護墊俠」的印度企業家Arunachalam Muruganantham。
此人因量產售價低廉、平民也可負擔的衛生棉，而改善了貧窮地區女性因月經而造成的衛生問題，而受到國際推崇。
此外，她也關注血液背後利潤豐厚的交易，說明美國被視為血液出產大國之因。最後，她也提到血液未來的趨勢：例如科學家們正努力研發可供人類使用的合成血，以去除血液運送過程中的耗損和時間。
《Nine Pints》全面耙梳血液相關的科学、政治、真實故事、和全球當下問題。
帶我們以全然不同的眼光，看待自己身上多面向的九品脫血液。
Blood carries life, yet the sight of it makes people faint. It is a waste product and a commodity pricier than oil. It can save lives and transmit deadly infections. Each one of us has roughly nine pints of it, yet many don't even know their own blood type. And for all its ubiquitousness, the few tablespoons of blood discharged by 800 million women are still regarded as taboo: menstruation is perhaps the single most demonized biological event.
Rose George, author of The Big Necessity, is renowned for her intrepid work on topics that are invisible but vitally important. In Nine Pints, she takes us from ancient practices of bloodletting to the breakthough of the "liquid biopsy," which promises to diagnose cancer and other diseases with a simple blood test. She introduces Janet Vaughan, who set up the world's first system of mass blood donation during the Blitz, and Arunachalam Muruganantham, known as "Menstrual Man" for his work on sanitary pads for developing countries. She probes the lucrative business of plasma transfusions, in which the US is known as the "OPEC of plasma." And she looks to the future, as researchers seek to bring synthetic blood to a hospital near you.
Spanning science and politics, stories and global epidemics, Nine Pints reveals our life's blood in an entirely new light.
Nine Pints was named one of Bill Gates recommended summer reading titles for 2019.