View items related to this story   By Sherwin B. Nuland Knopf
395pp $26.95  Combine extraordinary life experience with an
intriguing conceit, and you have a recipe for a great book.
That's what New Haven surgeon Sherwin B. Nuland did in 1994,
when his How We Die offered an intimate look at life and death,
and the principal ways in which people pass from one state to
another. After years of treating ill or injured patients, Nuland
brilliantly mixed firsthand testimony with artful writing to
convey what goes awry with the human machine when battered by
cancer or AIDS, or betrayed by a failing heart. For his effort,
he snagged a National Book Award.  Nuland is back with his new,
intriguingly titled book The Wisdom of the Body. Once again, he
has unpacked decades of hospital war stories, and his
fascination with our marvelous mechanisms is infectious. The
book's opening rivals any episode of ER or Chicago Hope: A
panicky hospital operator pages, ''Any general surgeon!...Go
immediately to the operating room,'' and