5.1.

1
Heart: introduction and orientation
(3:51)

This tape shows the internal organs of the thorax and of the abdomen, and the male and female
reproductive organs. In this first section we'll look at the organs of the thorax: first the heart, then the
lungs. We'll also look briefly at the esophagus.

The thorax itself, the upper part of the trunk which contains the heart and lungs, is shown in Tape 3 of this
atlas. Here, we're looking at the contents.

To understand the heart we'll begin by seeing where it is. We tend to put the heart here in our
imagination, but in reality it's much closer to the mid-line. Seen from in front, the heart is here. It lies
behind the sternum, and directly above the diaphragm.

Seen from the side, the heart is here, occupying almost all the space between the vertebral bodies behind,
and the sternum in front. When the diaphragm moves, the heart moves with it.
To get our first look at the heart, we'll start by removing the upper extremities, and all the shoulder
muscles that surround the upper thorax, so as to leave just the thorax itself, enclosed by the ribs and
intercostal muscles.

Then we'll remove this part of the rib cage on each side, revealing the lungs, which are fully inflated here.
When we let the lungs deflate we can see the heart behind the sternum, contained within its protective
jacket of pericardium. To see it better we'll take the lungs, the sternum and the pericardium out of the
picture

This is the heart. This is the diaphragm. The major blood vessels that lead into and out of the heart take up
almost as much space as the heart itself.
Now that we've seen where the heart is we'll take a detailed look at it. We'll look at its four chambers, and
its four valves; then we'll look at the great vessels that enter and leave the heart, and lastly we'll look at
the coronary arteries.

Because we so often see simplified diagrams of the heart like this, we tend to think the atria, the inlet
chambers, are above, and the ventricles, the pumping chambers, are below. It's perhaps surprising to see
that in reality the atria aren't above the ventricles, they're behind them.
Here's the heart in isolation. Here are the ventricles in front, here are the atria behind. This generous
coating of epicardial fat makes it hard to see the four chambers distinctly.

To see them more clearly, we'll go to a heart in which almost all the fat has been removed. In this
specimen all four chambers have been distended with equal pressure, making the atria somewhat larger
than normal. This is a directly posterior view of the heart, this is a directly anterior view. The massive
thick walled left ventricle projects forward and to the left. The thinner walled right ventricle is partially
wrapped round the left one.

We'll see the ventricles by themselves in a minute. For now, let's go round to the back, and look at the two
atria.