The lung’s a magnificent organ that perform a multitude of vital functions every other of our lives. Breathing is the most essential of these functions. With each breath, the lungs take in oxygen and take away carbon dioxide.
The air we respire enters the lungs via the main windpipe. which branches into two main tubes supplying the left and right lung, respectively. These tubes progressively branch 21 additional times to form more than 1,00000 minor tubes and more than 300 million air sac, which are only about 0.4 mm in diameter.
Thus the surface area of the lungs is huge larger than the surface of a self is skin. In fact, if all the airways and air sac of a person is lungs were laid level on the ground, they would cover more than one handed square yards, which is larger than the size of a tennis court. Because the walls of these air sac are 1/45th the width of tissue paper and are bathed with millions of small blood vessels called capillaries, there is an easy and efficient exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between the body and the environment.
The lungs are also important in the body is defense next to infection and other damaging environmental factors. While the nose is the first line of defense against inhaled harmful materials, the lungs provide the second line of defense. Inhaled particles or infectious agent pass through the mouth or nose and lodge in the lungs.
Mucus, a muggy fluid produced in the lungs, can trap these inhaled agents and aid the lungs’ defensive white blood cells in the engulfment and obliteration of bacteria and extra harmful materials. Coughing is the best way to clear mucus and other materials from the lungs; however, the larger airways have tiny hairlike cell called cilia that aid in this process. The cilia beat with a rhythm fast enough, and a force sufficient enough, to propel mucus and cells up the airways to be coughed out or swallow. When a person smokes, the cilia are inactivated or destroyed, allow thick mucus to accumulate and compromise lung defense.
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