The Thorax
This week, our gross anatomy class has been spending a little time checking out the thorax. So far we’ve mostly remained above the diaphragm so it’s mostly heart and lungs in there.
There is something very cool about holding a human heart in your hands. It really is an impressive piece of organic machinery. I cut through the left ventricle to open it up, and couldn’t believe how thick the walls were. The walls of the left side of the heart are always thicker than the right. That’s because it has to pump blood out to the whole body through the aorta, whereas the right side only has to pump as far as the lungs. And the muscles inside look right out of an alien landscape.
Everything in there is also so compact, the way that the heart and the lungs and all the vessels between fit together. When you first remove the lungs, they have indentations for the heart all the superior heart vessels. And the heart largely takes it’s shape from having been wrapped in the lungs and sat on the diaphragm for all that time. The esophagus, trachea, and thoracic aorta are all centered in the space offered between the lungs. The sympathetic chain hides out between the inner and innermost intercostal muscles and manages to cover so much space without ever getting in the way of anything else.
All in all, it’s a cool little area to see.