Quantifying the differences between men and women is difficult, but in the second home edition of “The Merck Manual of Medical Information,” the difference is 120 pages. The men’s health section takes 20 pages and the women’s section takes 140.
Men may wonder if women are really that much more complex. The answer, according to Dr. Mark H. Beers, chief editor, is yes. “Male reproduction is much less complicated,” Beers said. “You’ve got testosterone, sperm. A woman’s reproductive system is far more complicated.”
But guys can take heart; this second home edition is the first with a men’s section at all. And the book, briefly a New York Times best-seller, goes light-years beyond nosebleeds. Take fetishes, for example.
Available in bookstores for $37.50, the information in the book eventually will all be available for free online, but by then, that tumor on your neck could be the size of a basketball.
