Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles Hi. Welcome to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. In today's video I'm going to give you a bit of an anatomy lesson. Now, first of all, we have to understand a few things. One, this is very scientific things and it's not necessarily important for everybody, but it's good to know. You never know when you might have to talk to your doctor about some of these things, some of these issues, and explain to them what's going on. Or if the doctor needs to explain to you what is going on in your body, you can at least have a basic idea of what he or she is speaking about. Another thing to remember is: I'm not a doctor so if I'm not saying it exactly correct, let it go. It's all about English, not about medicine. So, don't sue me for malpractice later. Okay? So we're going to start with anatomy. What is "anatomy"? This is basically the structure of the body, all the parts of the body, inside, outside, and all around. And we're going to look today at the five vital organs. "Organs" are basically pieces of equipment inside your body. "Vital" means crucial, very, very important, very necessary. So we're going to talk about the five vital organs, meaning that if anything happens to these particular organs, you could die. Okay? So you have to be a little bit careful when it comes to taking care of them. And we're also going to look at the systems that they are parts of. Your body has lots of different systems that control and regulate what happens to your body, and we're going to look at how some of these work. Okay? Now, there are a lot more than five organs, there are more than five systems, but we're only going to look at the vital five today. We're going to start with your "heart". So everybody knows more or less where your heart is, it's about middle of your chest, left or right, depending on the person. What the heart does is it pumps... Basically it pumps blood... It is a pump and it pumps blood throughout your system. Right? It gets the blood flowing in and out. That's why we call it part of the "circulatory system". It circulates the blood throughout your body. The blood goes into the heart, fills up with oxygen, goes to the body, comes back to the heart without oxygen, fills up again, and again, and again. The system is basically made up of the heart, of course. The "blood vessels", these are the small, little lines of blood that reach all over your body. The "arteries", these are the big, the main blood vessels, the main pipelines, if you want to call them, that leave the heart full of oxygen and travel all around the body, and spreading the oxygen all around. And then the veins, that's the blue ones that you might see on your arms, they're going back to the heart without oxygen to get refilled. And then you have a "spleen", which is another organ we're not going to get into right now. So very important, take care of your heart. Now, as a side note, the most... The thing you need to be most worried about are your arteries. If you're going to eat a lot of fatty foods, these things can get clogged. "Clogged" means they get full and the blood can't pass through, and that's when you have a heart attack or even a stroke, so very, very important to make sure that this doesn't happen. Don't eat too many hamburgers, and pizzas, and chips, and French fries, and all of that other delicious, but unhealthy stuff. Next we're going to look at your "brain", the biggest muscle in your body they say, so make sure you exercise, because muscles need exercise to grow. The brain is, again, in your "skull". Okay? It is part of the "central nervous system". Okay? So your brain controls all the voluntary and involuntary actions of your body. "Voluntary", I want to lift my hand up so I do. My brain sends a message, my hand goes up, my hand goes down, side, all around. "Involuntary", breathing. If I held my breath, eventually, even if I want to hold it, my brain will force my lungs to work and I will be able to breathe again. It's involuntary. I don't have much of a choice about it. Okay? The central nervous system consists of the brain, again. The "spinal cord", that's the line in your back-okay?-that it's connected all the way up, keeps your skeleton all together. And the "nerves". The "nerve endings" on all parts of your body, so if you go like this, you feel it here, but you understand it here. Okay? And then we have the "lungs". The lungs are the two very delicate, very fragile pieces inside your chest that fill with air, push out air, fill with air, push out air. They're part of the "respiratory system". "Respiratory" basically means breathing, so the lungs take in the air that we breathe into them, they absorb the oxygen, they release the carbon dioxide and push that back outside. Right? So, CO2, you know, oxygen and carbon dioxide. Oxygen in, carbon dioxide out. Made up of the lungs, the "trachea" is in here, and the "diaphragm", basically underneath, pushes up and down to help the lungs expand or contract. I hope you can see that. Expand, contract, expand, contract. So these are your lungs. So these are three of the five. Let's look at the other two that some people don't necessarily think about regularly. Okay, so now we're going to look at the other two organs, and we're going to start with the "kidneys". The kidneys, they're called kidneys because they're shaped a little bit like that, like a kidney bean a little bit. There are two of them. They're sort of, like, located a little bit in the back of... And lower back. They are part of the "urinary system". Now, if you're not sure: "urine" is the correct word for pee. When you go to the washroom to pee, it's actually urine, the yellow stuff or whatever. So, the kidneys are the organs that are responsible for cleaning the water in your system, and the blood, etc., a little bit to a certain extent, and creating the urine. So they clean out the water, and whatever is waste water comes out as pee, as urine. So it consists of the kidneys; the "bladder", this is where you store the pee. And when you say: "Oh, I really have to pee", that's your bladder getting full. The two "ureters" that pass it along to the bladder... From the kidneys, the ureters, to the bladder, and then through the "urethra" outside when you go to the washroom. Okay? The urethra is where the pee comes out, basically, that little tube. And "sphincter muscles" are basically in your anus, in your bum where... For other things as well. Okay? So this is basically a... It's like a plumbing system, if you want to call... If you want to think of it like that. It's your... If you want to talk about your body as a... Basically a machine, that's the plumbing system. Now, you have two of these. You can live with one, you can't live with neither of them. You have to have at least one. So, a lot of people get a transplant. Now, you can have organ transplants, and kidneys are very common transplants. You can take from a healthy person, you can take out and give it to somebody else who has both of their kidneys are bad. Right? Because without your kidneys you're going to die, so you can have a transplant and move an organ from one healthy body to another healthy body. Just as a side note, when you get a driver's license... I don't know if it's in every country, but in Canada, for example, when you get your driver's license they will give you a little form, and you can say: "Yes" or "No", and sign it, if you die you can donate your organs or body parts to medicine. So, if you get into an accident and you're going to die, maybe they can take out your kidney and give it to somebody who's sick. That's a choice. You have to put moral, religious, philosophical ideas into it, but just so you know, that's where a lot of these organs come from. You can also donate an organ if you match, and there's all kinds of things about that. And next, let's go look at "liver". So your livers are about here. It... Again, you're going to have to look at an actual anatomy book to figure out the map of the body, but a liver is multi-functional, it does many things. It cleans the blood, it means it takes out harmful toxins. "Toxins" are basically poisons, it takes them out of the blood system and gets rid of them, or processes them. For example, people who are alcoholics, people who drink a lot of alcohol, the liver is what cleans the blood after you drink all that alcohol. If you drink too much alcohol, eventually you're working your liver so hard that it stops working, and then you're in big trouble. So don't drink too much. It's also part of the "digestive system". It produces bile and digestive juices. So in your stomach where you're processing food in order to get the nutrients out, the liver contributes part of the juices that break down the food, and it also produces