Circulatory System
The circulatory system is an extremely remarkable and amazing system of the human body. Even as you read this book, your heart beats approximately seventy times every minute and with continuous and precise beats conveys nourishment and oxygen to all the cells of your body. Do you know what would happen if your heart stops beating only for a few minutes?
Study of our circulatory system (heart, veins, arteries and capillary hair…) guides us to the existence of a wise and a powerful creator.
Blood flows at the edge of and around all the cells of the body like a steam of water and it conveys nourishment and oxygen to them. Red globules float in the liquid of blood. In every cubic millimeter of blood, there are approximately five million red globules and in the body of every man there are around 25000 million red globules. These globules have a very intricate and remarkable function. Their function is to convey oxygen to the cells and to recover carbon dioxide from them and in order to fulfill this life-giving function they to moving and circulating through the body nerves continuously. The length of this passage is great. An average red globule has the life-span of 120 days and new globules are being continuously manufactured by the blood making center of the body.
It would be better if we organize a scientific journey with a group of globules so that we may understand the various stages of this journey and we may be able to look closely at the intricate and amazing system of blood circulation. Definitely by seeing this systematic and amazing compatibility we would say: Great, wise and powerful is the creator, who has created such an elaborate system.
1. First stage
If you have a photo or a picture in your house; you should look at it, look at the left vertical of the heart. Our supposed journey begins at 9 am on Saturday in the company of a group of red globules, which are carrying oxygen with them. The contraction of the left ventricle creates a severe movement, which takes us to the outer stage. It is extremely amazing and interesting that we have reached into a wide and a branched canal, the aorta, which has many branches, distributes blood and conveys to every organ a fixed amount of blood.
2. Passage
Through continuous and repeated beatings, which reach us from the rear we are in such motion; and we ask the globules with whom we are traveling: What is our route and where are we headed? They reply: We are moving to the brain. Continuous contractions of the heart create new beats and send us forward; the passage gradually becomes narrow and narrower, so narrow that if it is almost a hundredth of a human hair; these are known as capillaries and they are extremely thin and have many loops.
3. Stage of narrow passages
We ask our co-traveler globules: Shall we rest for awhile enroute? They reply: No, but at the edge of these cells we would reduce our speed and give them the oxygen that we are carrying and take carbon dioxide from them, which is the by product of the heating of the cells and take it back with us. Here we saw that the oxygen that the globules carry is given to the cells and the cells take up the freshly inhaled oxygen and give back carbon dioxide to the globules.
Moreover, we also saw that the cells secrete their excess matter into the blood stream so that the blood may take it away from there to be disposed at another place.
4. Return journey
The color and form of the red globules have changed and it is no more having that same joy and happiness and passing through other narrow and interlaced passages with which they are well acquainted; they are on the return journey. Where are they returning? To the heart on the return route they are being beaten continuously from the rear through the contractions of the heart and we are being pushed ahead as if something is pulling us ahead. Gradually the way widens and we pass through the aorta and reach a dark passage and ask what its name is. It replies: Artery. (as impure blood passes through it) and finally we reach the end of our journey into the heart.
5. Entering the right atrium
Now that we have reached the heart, has our journey come to an end? No...on the contrary we rest only for a short while and the valve below us opens and all of us enter the right ventricle. It is explained that this ventricle is having three parts and its function is extremely sensitive. It operates only on one side and it opens only from the atrium into the ventricle and it does not open from the ventricle into the atrium. On the contrary it closes completely and without leaving any hole or gap for the blood to flow into the ventricle.
6. Severe beating
At the stage of the three-lobed ventricle, we feel that we have been given a hard push and thrown out of the right ventricle. Where are we going? To the lungs. What for? To obtain oxygen. Through some continuous beatings, we reach to the alveoli. Globules are present at the edge of free air, which enters the lungs from outside. In the lungs, oxygen is picked up and carbon dioxide eliminated, and the oxygenated blood returns to the heart via the pulmonary veins, thus completing the circuit.
7. Entering the left atrium
After the globules take up oxygen they enter the atrium happily and the valve (mitral valve) opens downwards and goes into its first stage in the left ventricle as before. We immediately bids farewell to it before a powerful contraction could send us back to that same channel and thus we separate from our friends.
In this supposed journey we come to know about two types of blood circulations: General circulation and pulmonary circulation. General blood circulation begins from the left ventricle of the heart like a powerful pump and sends the blood to all the tissues of the body and ends at the right ventricle. Pulmonary circulation begins from the right ventricle and passing through capillaries reaches the lungs and after the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide, returns to the left ventricle.
Stages of heart beat
After a compatible and simultaneous contractions of the ventricles, the atriums open and pull the blood from the arteries to themselves and gradually fill up. At this point begins the general expansion of the heart as at this stage all the cavities of the heart are at rest:
1. Contraction of the atrium takes place after the general restfulness and sends the two bloods from the atriums to the ventricles.
2. Contraction of the ventricles, which on one hand send blood to body tissues and on the other hand send it to the lungs.
3. General rest
These three stages together occur in approximately one-eighth of a second and in this way the heart of a human being beats for 70 times a minute.
A discourse on Knowing God
If we look at the intricate and systematic working of the heart and blood circulation, we would realize that this advanced and remarkable machinery is having a wise and a powerful creator who has created it with this minuteness and finesse.
To further motivate reflection we can pose the following questions to our intellects and seek replies to them:
1. With all this complexity and marvel, is it possible that the heart came into being on its own without any aim?
2. Do the atriums and ventricles of the heart themselves assumed their present shapes and forms?
3. Did the heart valves plan such a responsibility and specialty for themselves and then brought themselves into existence?
4. Has the elegant network of veins, capillaries and capillary hairs come into being automatically and by coincidence?
5. Has discipline, compatibility and cooperation between the heart and network of veins and respiratory system developed through chance? Or whether…?
Your intelligent reply is absolutely clear: A great, wise and powerful creator has created such an amazing system. God is great.