Body Care Manual Heart, Nervous System and Others Part 1

About Dick Gregory and the Body Owner's Manual, biology and anatomy of the heart, nervous system and other parts and how they function.

THE FUEL PUMP, BATTERY, SPARK PLUGS, AND OTHER PARTS

The heart is the fuel pump of the body machine, pumping oxygen through the blood-stream to various parts of the body according to their need. Since the heart is a living tissue, it must receive nourishment from the food taken into the body. However, it does not receive nourishment from the blood pumped through it, but rather from a special supply of blood coming through the coronary arteries.

The pumping action of the heart causes it to "beat." . . .

The heart beats about 100,000 to 150,000 times a day, pumping somewhere between 10,000 and 11,000 qts. of blood throughout the body. Circulating the blood around at such a pace, the heart will pump some 45 million gal. of blood in the span of a half century. Few other fuel pumps could render that kind of service.

The rate of the heart, or the intensity of its work, depends upon the demand put upon it by other parts of the body. When an organ is called upon to do more work, it needs a greater supply of oxygen and thus the heart must work harder too. Exercising requires more oxygen, and the heart must pump it. So does eating. When the process of digestion is going on, glands and organs need greater supplies of oxygen from the heart. If the diet consists of the wrong kind of food, overloading the work of the liver and other parts of the body, the heart also feels the strain.

The action of the heart speeds up when the carbonic-acid gas content of the blood is increased. Eating an excess of carbon foods increases the carbonic-acid gas content of the blood and consequently "puts a hurtin'" on the heart. Starchy foods, cereals, and all kinds of manufactured sugar have this effect. Too much carbon food intake results in both high and low blood pressure. It is tragically amusing to hear folks talk about "having heart trouble," when, if admit they are "giving themselves heart trouble."

The storage battery of the body machine is the nerve system. During sleep the "battery system" stores up energy to replace the vital life forces. The main distributing nerve center of the body machine is located at the base of the brain in the medulla oblongata, just above the nape of the neck. There are 2 main divisions of the battery system: the sympathetic nervous system and the central nervous system.

The sympathetic nervous system has nothing to do with a person's sympathies but rather controls the directing force coming from the brain. Breathing, the regulation of temperature and water in the body, the organs involved in eating and drinking, regulating the distribution of blood--all these functions (and many more) are affected by the sympathetic nervous system.

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