From the body venous blood enters the right side of the heart flowing out from superior, inferior vena cava and coronary sinus filing the right atrium. Pressure is applied to the tricuspid valve to open filing the right ventricle, tricuspid valve closes. Right ventricle contacts applying pressure for Pulmonary valve to open venous blood flows out up pulmonary trunk into left and right pulmonary arteries. Pulmonary valve closes, venous blood travels to the lungs, and lungs diffuse the blood through capillary beds becoming oxygen rich. From the lungs through pulmonary veins filling the left atrium with oxygenated blood. Left atrium applies pressure to bicuspid valve to open, blood fills left ventricle up, and bicuspid valve closes. Left ventricle contracts applying pressure to aortic valve to open with oxygenated blood flowing out through the Aorta to supply the body with oxygen rich blood. This takes place again. One twentieth of body’s blood is needed to nourish the heart itself. The heart has its own system called the Coronary Circulation. Our heart begins to beat at day 22 of gestation development. How many beats in one’s life time? Well that depend on one’s life cycle! The heart is certainly quite a complex system. Working heart function is automatic and we are oblivious to the mechanics within our body system. “If you should rear a rubber duckie in the heart of the Sahara, no doubt it would swim if you brought it to the Nile.” Mark Twain’s shortness in wording invites thinking. That ticker requires nourishment, rest, oxygen and regular exercise; omitting hearts environmental necessaries to maintain its function will no doubt reflect a desert. There are no working pumps in a desert nor are there any rubber Duckies.
by Kelly Keegan
Ducktor House M.D
www.rubberduckie.net.au