Ask Me Everything7

Heart

Vital organs

A muscular pump, the heart powers oxygen-rich blood around the body to "feed" your body cells. Throughout your lite, the heart keeps pumping without ever tiring.

RECORD

BREAKER

Liver

Processes some nutrients and Stores others and removes harmful substances from the blood. It also recycles worn-out red blood cells.

W ■ ■ Connect patient to a heart/lung bypass machinę so blood still circulates during surgery. Cut open the chest.

Lungs

Deliver oxygen from the air to your bloodstream when you breathe in.

They also release waste carbon dioxide from the blood when you breathe out.

Skin functions

✓ Keeps out germs and water

✓ Keeps in body fluids

Brain

Collects, interprets, and sends out Information through the nervous system enabling you to move, feel, think, and remember.

• Filters out harmful UV rays in sunlight

' Helps the body maintain a constant internal temperaturę

¹ Makes vitamin D

What is your largestbody I organ? V

The parts of the body that perform a specific function, such as the heart and lungs, are called organs. The largest organ in the human body is the skin, which can cover an area of morę than 20 sq ft (2 sq m). Some body organs are vital to sustain lite, but when damaged, many can now be replaced by a healthy organ from a donor.

Ho w to:

transplant a heart

Due to a rare medical condition known as Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, Englishman Gary Turner has the world’s stretchiest skin.

w m Stop the diseased heart and remove it. Leave the back part of the left atrium (upper left chamber) in place.

03 ■ Insert the donor

heart into the chest and sew the atrium to the old atrium.

What’s it for?

No one knows for certain what an appendlx does. Scientists once thought that this fmger-size tubę attached to the large intestine was used by our ancestors to digest tough plant food. Experts now think that the appendix might play a role in the immune system by storing helpful bacteria.

bhts Reserved.