★ The skin is the largest organ of the human body, and touch is the first sense a child develops in the mother's womb, but touch is perhaps the most neglected sense in our life. This book takes us on a fresh look at this sense and how we use it in our daily lives.
★ Different persons has different attitudes toward physical contact. There are complex social, psychological, and physiological reasons. Historically and culturally, physical contact has been influenced by social conventions; scientifically, touch is rich in interconnections with other senses, other systems and other biological functions. From the historical-philosophical evolution of touch to its biological basis, this book explores all aspects of touch.

Touch is the sense mostly taken for granted, perhaps the most neglected. Yet humans have been embracing each other since the Neolithic, and our oldest myths speak of the life-giving power of touch, from Homer trying to embrace his dead mother when he met her in Hades, to Aesculapius, god of medicine, who healed people with touch. It is the first sense a child develops in the mother’s womb, and it is fundamental in affective and physiological development, social cohesion and the development of empathy. But it is also the sense that makes us most demure and influences how different peoples greet each other, the one most regulated by social conventions, the one most challenged by taboos or social distancing, as the pandemic has shown us. There are those who need physical contact, those who gladly do without it, and even those who are repulsed by the idea of being touched. For a web of social, psychological, and physiological reasons. For science, touch is a sense that is difficult to study but rich in interconnections with other senses, other systems and other biological functions. Not to mention its strong evolutionary roots, since we are certainly not the only species to use hugs to communicate social or emotional meanings. In this essay, neurobiologist and journalist Marta Paterlini explores the many facets of this mysterious, fascinating and often underestimated sense, from the historical and philosophical evolution of physical touch to its molecular and neural underpinnings, from touch deprivation and its consequences to its social and cultural implications. Revealing how
many central aspects of our everyday life, and of our interactions with the world and other living things, pass through the largest of our organs: the skin.

Marta Paterlini is a Neurobiologist and science journalist. She has worked at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, and at Rockefeller University in New York. She is currently a senior scientist at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, where she lives. He contributes to “Science,” “Nature” and “The Lancet.” She published “Piccole visioni. La grande storia di una molecola” (2007).