Fantastic Voyage

Two-thirds water, the rest nitrogen, carbon, calcium and a myriad of other chemicals--worth only about $5, even at today's inflated prices. That is the strange machinery of the human body. It appears in unprecedented and almost incredible detail this week on the Public Broadcasting Service (see facing page). Produced by the National Geographic Society and Wolper Productions, created by Irwin Rosten and narrated by Actor E.G. Marshall, the hour-long film is entitled, naturally enough, The Incredible Machine. It uses microscopy, X rays and telescopic lenses tiny enough to penetrate the body's innermost recesses to capture the color, texture and activities of the heart, blood vessels, middle ear, lungs, bones and 'joints.

One of the film's most spectacular sequences depicts the process of conception from ovulation to development of an obviously human fetus (TIME, June 24, 1974). Other segments of the film are no less impressive. In one, bones, muscle and the membrane of the middle ear vibrate in time to Yankee-Doodle, helping transmit sound to the brain. In yet another, blood cells line up to pass one at a time through the tightly constricted passageway of a tiny vein. But one scene, more than any other, suggests how far science must go before it fully understands the activities it has recorded. In this sequence, cells from the heart muscle lie in a culture dish, each continuing to beat at its own rhythm until it comes into contact with another cell. Once their edges touch, the two cells mysteriously begin to beat in unison.

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