AV Geeks 16mm Lunch 5-29-2024

[Music] [Applause] [Music] out this is 3 and one2 year-old Jennifer Gario since July 1973 Jennifer has been using a unique rechargeable pacemaker to increase her heart rate from slow to near normal she joined some 60,000 other Americans who have heart pacemakers implanted every year that developed by John's Hopkins University Applied Physics laboratory the pacemaker makes use of power cells originally used aboard satellites in space it is half the thickness and 1/3 the volume of earlier models and can be pain painlessly recharge from outside the body for 20 years this eliminates the need for surgery every 2 years to remove and replace batteries Mrs Kathleen Gario tells what the new device has meant to her daughter Jennifer it's meant a lot because since Jennifer's had the pacemaker there's been a complete change in her she's grown in size she's acting very normal where before she really couldn't play or keep up with the other children it also means a great deal to was knowing that she doesn't have to be operated on every 2 years and also the size of it that it's small enough for her the other Pac makers were quite large what the pacemaker does is send an electrical impulse to the heart speeding up Jennifer's heartbeat from a slow rate of 40 to a normal 72 beats a minute and normal she is she does nearly everything a healthy youngster can do and especially enjoys playing with her Brothers cousins and friends I the comment what to the com over her routine is different for only 90 minutes a week when she recharges the pacemaker batteries pacemaker charger is very simple it's convenient enough to carry you can take it anywhere necessary to charge her it's also very good if we were on a week's vacation we wouldn't have to take it with us if you miss a week you can catch up on it but there' be no harm to Gennifer if we should not do it [Music] that alarm means that the charging head is not meeting up it lets us know that it's not charging when it stops the green light goes on and that means that she's being charged and when the whole charging period is finished a blue light goes on and let us know that it's the end of the charge this means that she's charged for another week we won't have to do it until next week we asked Mrs gasio about the outlook for Jennifer's future the outlook for Jennifer's future is very good the doctors say that she can live to be a ripe old age and she could grow up to to be anything she wants to [Music] be the basic concept for the long life battery in Jennifer's pacemaker has been proven in over 10 years of space use a good example of technology for space now being used to help people this has been an Aeronautics and Space report presented by NASA the National Aeronautics and Space [Music] Administration watch Mr wh that's what all the kids in the neighborhood call it because shows them the bad day living wizard oh hi F come my in what's going on you see that um strange Contraption on my yes well that proves I'm alive what you see see prove that I'm alive though doesn't it yeah sure your heart must be beating uh have you ever seen uh a real heart a real one no ever handled being able to examine one no I've seen even pictures well today you're going to examine a real heart it's over there in the refrigerator all waiting for you and uh how about have you ever seen real blood circulating through real blood vessels no we're going to see that today too would right are you ready I guess so well today we're going to sort of uh take the um attitude of oh I am at least going to take the attitude of people a long time ago they knew that there was blood inside of people because obviously they had Wars and people had cut themselves and out came blood uh but could you prove it right now they they just thought that there was blood and they didn't know a lot like what we know today uh could you prove that there was blood inside of you without actually cutting yourself cuz obviously well my my heart is beating and now wait a minute you know so that's just something thumping inside of you that has nothing to do with blood maybe how could you prove to somebody that there was blood inside of you without cutting yourself well inside you blush the skin perhaps yeah uh do you blush some times you can turn white sometimes but maybe the easiest way is right with your fingernails here if you put your fingernail give me your fingernail if you put your fingernails down like this and you and you push on them they turn white don't they M then when you let go they get back red again they get back red again now why is that but I guess when you it's forcing the blood away when you release the pressure it's flowing back FL com back so your fingernails are ordinarily quite pink in color but you push the blood away they become white so you try that uh that's an easy way to prove it is all you needed it cuz most people have cut themselves uh well now all right so I'll say there's blood inside of you uh but that's just uh watery stuff uh filling up the spaces between the between the muscles and stuff uh you say what that it moves around sure moves around well how do you know well like your PS your p i mean well Ian the heart is pumping so that so that just means that there's something going Thump Thump Thump there but I do necessarily say the same thing that's going Thump Thump there is that same thing that's in here going how would you prove well let's take the Pulse for instance how do you take your pulse show me what do you do well I know the doctor places like his hand around there well not he may place it across this way the point is there are arteries and veins in your hand here and one of the arteries that it comes fairly close to the surface right in here in the in the bones in your wrist mine I find right there put your finger right there you feel it I feel it Thum Thum now you're not supposed to use your thumb so don't do them cuz there's an artery in your thumb that could interfere they think so you put your fingers on there now in order for both of us to hear it I have this metronome here which you can vary the time by moving this di wagon for it so with the hand that you're taking the pulse you move this metronome until it coincides with your thump there and your wrist and uh then I'll be able to hear how fast it goes and we'll be able to read it right off here now let it stand step for a while so that you see if you can establish the right Rhythm I think I have it now okay now you can read here what it says 80 means this 80 beats in a minute this is for music students and they would have 80 beats a minute for you know playing a piano a certain speed so now we have 80 beats a minute now let's uh have you exercise and you know the doctor has you do this sometimes one of the methods is to get a chair up here you put one foot up and then down you know back and forth an exercise do this before okay do this fast as you can 10 times and then we'll check your pulse again okay go ahead one 2 3 4 ow 5 6 7 8 9 one more quick 10 TR quick get your pulse before it P calms down like that this is pretty close to it yeah what does that say about 110 maybe yeah see from 80 to 30 yeah so it beats it's speed it up considerably 1 hour doesn't this prove that your blood must circulate did you exercise your arms particularly no it was my legs well what is the exercising your legs got to do with the pulse in your wrist well my exercise making my heartbeat faster and it's making blood they must be connected somehow the stuff that's inside your legs and the stuff that's inside here well that's one way of course of proving that your blood circulates around okay well now maybe you don't have a metronome at home how else can two people look at Pulse at the same time you can call it or something that would be a little here's kind of a way that's fun you get a soda straw and cut it in half and pinch the end of it so that you can put it into a a uh nut you know a nut and bolt kind of thing if you now put that on your wrist where the pulse is and just get it off center enough no it was shaking a little yeah would ask me shaking not my P you have to move it around because you it's St you almost have it I I think I can see what you're trying to get at though that as the the pulse moves just this little bit it's going to make the straw move there's moving just a little bit now got you move it over a little more and now you can really see so you get the point is that this is a long lever and if you if you get the end of The Nut to move over here why you're going to magnify here you trying well you're alive I can tell because it keeps moving around I don't I know I it's my arm more than that well anyway you get the idea of that that that's once you get it working it works quite well uh another method that is even more sensitive than this if you have all the equipment was the stuff the thing that I was using when you came in now what this is is a a little plastic tube filled with water see rubber diaphragm on the bottom held in place with the rubber band and a one hole stopper stuck into it when you push down like this some of the water comes out previously we put some little drops of water throughout it so that all the pressure that you apply down here to the diaphragm oh yeah I can see it moving uh is transferred to the liquid and the liquid doesn't compress does it it'll have to go up it'll have to go up so that you magnify the movements down here now I'll push on the bottom you watch you see just the slightest little push go great it's quite sensitive okay now if you can get that yeah now this you can really see this is quite sensitive compared to the okay now you want to dress and see if you can do that okay I'll give it a try try try not to wiggle it that's it now here yeah you got it now very good now try the one in your neck here right in here there's one on your neck if you can hold it up here like this and I'll try you see do you see any moving yeah looks like where I got the most now wait see if you see any moving moving very little wait move it around it should be good I don't think you have it probably pretty hard to telling yourself wait let me get my you feel it first ah there it is now yes that that's even better than the here let me see if I can find on you and you all you do is you just look out there and see if the oh boy are you alive it's really can you see it yeah it really moves quite a bit also moves when we talk proving you're also alive yeah up and kick well and uh you can see your pulse at home and doctors of course have many ways of of checking pulse besides this they have blood pressure machine which of course is BS on pulse and so forth um but what is it that's making that that pulsing now you the human heart in school oh well then you should know something about it yeah well what what is the human heart what does it do tell me start from where the blood goes in what happens well basically it has four chambers wait wait oh boy that was friend there now there is of the heart uh does it look like the Valentine hearts that everybody talks about a different kind of heart entirely but it does have sort of the general shape doesn't it MH okay it's divided you said into what four chambers four chambers but really basically in half two different okay well let's um what start down here okay this is the from the organs the O the top here and then it goes first arle here right then let's open up then it goes through this two a valve right valve into the right ventricle okay now notice those strings over there and that's part that's part of the valve yeah now the V by the way wait notice the side the thickness of this side of the heart notice the the side of the wall there okay just remember that okay and now this the right ventricle pumps it up through here into the into the lungs pulmonary artery going up here up to the lungs yeah into the lungs okay now what Happ close up this side come around here then it comes back down from the lungs now not through there through here and it's already been oxygenated so now it's the red again and it goes into the this would be the left Oracle M see the valve oh here's the valve again on this side and it goes from the left arle into the left ventricle which now does the biggest pumping see the size of that uh the surface of the heart oh now I see why you want to be how thick it is then what then it see if I can see oh yeah then it's pumped up into the through here right into the aorta which is the main one it goes up to the head very to the body okay well very very good indeed now keep those those valves in mind because I have sort of a plastic bottle version of the valves let's see how they were see that pan of water over there mhm let's go look at them now to understand how the Val kind of work is one way I have put two plastic bottles together see here's one took the bottom out yeah with no bottom in it and here's the top of that plastic of the plastic bottle and I have drilled a hole in it see see there's a hole in there so that so that this little um marble actually it's a it's a plastic um ball will fit in there and cover up that hole now put the bottom the top onto the bottom of the bottle yeah and that is one half now here's another plastic bottle this time the bottom is in but I have a hole here see sare and here is another hole in the top of this um this one and another little plastic ball that Fs in there like that now we have a little ball in the bottom of each one of them now what well now I put them together and I have adhesive tape around here so to fill up the space you know that between the two now right down there I have some extra pieces you want to pull off one of those and we'll put it around there and tap the two bottles together okay now we have half a heart oh I see what's this this would be the ventricle The ventricle this is the arle Oracle the smaller part yeah now if I put this in water here this is our supply of blood this little valve down here will allow water or our first air to go which direction well you'll I'm going to squeeze squeeze this together you're trying to force the oh I see but it can't go out cuz this ball that's has to go up has to go up now in this case when I Let Go theoretically this ball up here should be solid enough to not allow any air to go back but it isn't because some air Lees to so I want to put my finger over to get it started and you watch what happens oh so you're sucking the the water I'm sucking the water up now see that now this valve down here works like some of the valves that are in the vein to keep the blood from going backwards but this valve right up here is the valve that's in the heart so you describe what happens now when this part beats now this is the beating and it sends the blood up this would be going out into lung now when it relax is when it relaxes instead of letting all the blood flow down again that like in this case the little plastic ball covers the hole so the blood has to stay up here now on the next pump more blood and now this is going out into the aor into the body right okay but it never allows all the blood to fall back down again Into The ventricle all right so you get the idea of how the blood only Moves In One Direction to the heart that's why it'll keep on going that's why it can relax without losing and no blood is lost okay now so when you hear a heartbeat uh the doctors often describe it as ldub ldub this is the Lu the squeezing of the valve you know the or the squeezing of the muscle itself and the dub is the valve closing yeah now in this case it's it's rattling s love rattle Ratt rattle rattle rattle but now let actually here that have you ever heard of heartbeat I haven't I know the doctor here you can you can sort of hear your own here is a stethoscope this thing yes it's a a funnel on the end of a rubber tube here put it up over your heart where is your heart by the way well that here right under that car yeah right under the car well right about where that cross piece is in other words it's just to the right of the center of your body and down a little lower than most people think right about in there so put the funnel a and put the other end in your ear and see if you can hear your own heart hey this pretty loud yeah wait a minute I can hear without this thing well I turned up some heartbeats could you really hear it though yeah I could it it was much softer though yeah than that love du love du that so you're actually hearing a heartbeat now yeah just for this this is basically how a stethoscope Works only it's much more refined and has two of them for the doctor and so forth but now you actually heard the heartbeat let's um what you're hearing now is is this muscle squeezing both of these muscles on the bottom part squeezing it together and then when it relaxes the the valves closing now here you can actually see it over here I'll turn it up and you'll be able to hear it at the same time oh yeah it's going across the screen and it's going up and down it's like the L sends it up and the dub is the high the high peak that you see here is the muscle closing and the lower one is is the the vows closing and you see over here is a record of the of the heart beating and that's what we're listening to and this is uh for doctors to train students as to what to expect when they listen to a heart this is a heartbeat this a recording of a heartbeat yes now what you're hearing there is called the Apex evidently at the top of the heart I'm not I'm not real sure but there there are several recordings on here let's listen to the one that's near the aor listen to this so the love is even more prominent than the dove see this is up near theor so it's you're not getting quite so much of the it's a little more rumbly isn't it it isn't as clear as the other one was then there's the SEC the third section on here says near the pulmonary artery up there and listen listen to that near the top of the heart there well there's no it's just one steady push yeah look at this it's not a one steady push but it's sort of a rumble well yeah it is one steady push but instead of like before it was love do now it's just love that love that you see the doctors can find out quite a bit about your heart by listening to the sounds of it and theyve made a very thorough study and can diagnose many of illnesses and whether you have a noral heart or whatnot from The Sounds alone okay well now when you uh came in I asked you if you had ever seen uh a real heart and you said no and I said I've got one over there in the refrigerator that you can take apart and look at would you uh get last time I went to that refrigerator I got a one out you got a l well this time's going to be a heart bring it back over here and let's see what one really looks like what's for lunch huh what's for lunch what's for lunch well of course people eat heart quite a bit in fact that you can get one of those right at the butcher shop this is a calf heart and there it is yeah does it look something like that model it does yeah it looks pretty where do you suppose the two parts are the dividing line oh well you can see the dividing line well that's actually it's matter well you know it isn't too bad once you touch it the first time it just looks F this looks kind of kind of messy doesn't it well it's not really down this line well this line is not is a is a a line of I think the place that supplies the blood to the heart but I think it is also a general division line you can see this side of the heart is much bigger than this side M okay and on top here actually some of the openings are still left and by the way you'll notice here's a cut that in beef heart when when the the beef is slaughtered the government insists that inspectors slit up the heart and examine it to see whether the animal is diseased or not I mean diseased it's heart will be uh it would heart would be affected uh so uh that's one of the reasons why if you do get a heart from the butcher shop and I suggest you do it because it's a lot of fun to examine it and see the very things you've been talking about it will have a slid in there like that well in order to examine the inside by the way notice the small part here what's that that's the top part that you've been talking about all this time that little thing that's part of it here's the other part of hand you don't realize it is so small compared to the VES cuz the ventricles do all the hard pump well now let's let's examine it inside let's cut it would you please cut the heart about right there okay go ahead scalp it yeah you feel like a surgeon surgeons do operate on the heart don't they and and examine and and repair it and sew it up and do all kinds of things with it now yes now you see when you cut it in half is it like what you expected inside yeah kind of I mean it looks sort of facing it the right way first of all yeah because here's the the thick wall remember I told you to look for that thick wall wall now yeah I really see the see how thin it is there that's right now this side must be what then this would be the uh well how am I looking at well you should look at it from the from the right from the standpoint of of you yourself of the person whose heart it is so this would be the right side this would be the left side now why is this side so much thicker than this well because this is the The ventricle on this side does the very heavy pumping out to the out to the uh through the aort into the body right okay now here is a rod which you with which you can investigate some of the passageways that you've been talking about from this one you should find two pass way shouldn't you one where the blood comes in and the other one going out well see if you can find it here let me move this out of your way okay well first of all where why don't you start from here so that you're sure you're going to get into the right places and push it through and it'll up now wait on as you do that look look where you went oh into the oh I did I found the opening into the see there's the that uh Oracle that you were surprised that there now move it on just a little more so that you can get it past that and see if you can get I see get to the main part of the hand now you but there must be an opening on the side there it go oh yeah so I've gone through from The ventricle through the Oracle and then back up to where the blood comes in right okay now go the other way came in now I want to go want to go up to the pulmonary you're back in the same one again this could be different there there you go keep going there now this is this is the lungs up here now that's where we're going to the lungs all right okay now go to the other side and see if you can find the two passageways that uh see where you come on first where's that one goinging from uh this be coming in I would think right right from the from uh you can you can make some some other cuts and look at it but I'll cut it open you'll see that there's there's really not it's rather difficult to see one of the things I thought you might like to see are those strings you remember that that in there that was very lifing you see there there are the strings right there and there's the valve that was I just cut part of the valve in half it is like like strings like little strings and here's the part looks like close yeah yeah there it is right there anyway we can have a lot of fun investigating stuff you've heard about and which is inside of you and which is very important by just getting a heart now come on let's wash our hands off one of the next things that we're going to see remember I asked you if you had you said no no now what are we going to do now we're going to actually see blood circulating through real veins but this time the veins of a gold Mar isn't it blood veins and arteries okay here here are our volunteers over here yes volunteers and we are we will look at the blood circulating through their tail in order to do that I have a little Contraption here that I can put the goldfish in here and by wetting this thoroughly it has plenty of water to last you know for several minutes while we look at it so let's take one of them and put them down there and spread his tail over an opening I've got there see so we get him in underneath this cloth so he has plenty of of water he can breathe the water he can breathe the water and now I'll take a thumb TCH and put it through just side of his tail hurt him well I don't think so I've done this several times and he never seems to to complain you know by flipping around or something and I think you probably would if it hurt him now I'll spread the tail over that opening like that and put another thumb tack across on the other side to help keep it apart and we're going to look at that space there between the two little thumb tags that's a thin membrane and if we now I'll put this under the microscope over here I'll get it set and then I'll have you turn out the light so you wait till I get it all ready and then we'll take a look at what goes on in the tail of a goldfish okay you I'll turn this on and you go turn out the light okay you want to turn them out now okay now let's go down just a little bit in magnification here so we see what we're looking at there you see is the tail of the Goldfish now I don't have too much magnification on it but I I just want you to see the structures you see wait a minute I I see little things running through Little River is that the water yeah there you see there's one right there yeah that's water that's com down his blood yeah here take my pencil and point to what you're talking about there well right here yeah that's right inside the thin part of his and there's one up there also here little one that real blood circulating through the tail of the Goldfish now here take keep my pencil I'm going up in magnification one more time we'll actually now magnify that section a considerable amount and be able to see it comes into Focus oh now you really can see it let me back up wh he po around up here hold on fish put back in the pond there in a minute oh there oh here you now can you see it there in the rib part down there look at that see you you can really see if they well I'm running here now give me the pestle a minute I'll point to the I I'll put it in here and so I give you an idea which side is the head this side that you see over there where that shadow is is the head end of the Goldfish so can you tell me which are the veins and which are the arteries now well these let me move it over there for you a little more these would be the veins then and these these would be the arteries running this way because the arteries are are running down toward his tail and this one would be a vein it's already it's lost it's oxygen already there he again okay I got to refocus hold it but it you can really see it do you see not in that vein section but up above it do you see any little little tiny rivers around here's one that's going across like from one probably a capillary look right here yeah you really see notice you don't see any beating when the when the veins and arteries get very small like this the beating effect is gone you see and it just is a steady flow you see what I me yeah oh here's a big one there well now here as we look as we look at these there's another one way up at the top there see oh there's a big one yeah there's a good one there yeah now as we look at these let's kind of realize what we've seen we now know that your heartbeats cuz you've actually seen a real heart you've heard a real heart you've heard your own heart you've taken your pulse so that you you know that you can tell the effect of the heart throughout your body the fact that you exercised your leg meant that uh uh your heart uh pulse increased in um in your wrist and youve found out various ways of doing it and here you're seeing actual real blood flowing through real veins really amazing in fact you might even see the little tiny Parts there which are the red cor pusles separated one now you want to turn on the light over there please okay now we on to be sure and put him back in the water see that he's all right oh good friend good friend the Goldfish and see if he's there you are thank you very much now when you do this at home you remember get out the get out the the tubing and set it up on your wrist like this and you'll be able to see your actual heartbeat just like that there it goes [Music] [Applause] [Music] studied many things here at the laboratory but for some time we've been engaged in our most important step life human life each new babe Born Into the world gives us a fresh glimpse into the wonders of God's creation here is his living sculpture that changes with every passing hour Architects dream of perfection here is the ultimate in complete automation construction repair breathing heartbeat everything fully automatic life is a precious and a wonderful thing and yet with all its importance it's amazing how little the average person knows about himself today almost any 10-year-old knows more about the family car and what makes it run than the average adult knows about himself and by the whatever you may happen to know about the family car will help you to understand your own body for there are many amazing similarities take a deep breath now exhale that was the intake and the exhaust cost of a 30 trillion cylinder motor you see there are some 30 trillion cells in the human body and each cell is like a tiny motor it burns fuel it requires oxygen to burn the fuel it gets hot and must be cool it gives off an exhaust gas and it performs work think of it a motor with 30 trillion cylinders and remember each of these tiny Motors must be continuously supplied day and night throughout your entire lifetime even an 8 cylinder motor gets pretty complicated we put the fuel in the gas tank the oil in the crank case the water in the radiator the oxygen enters through the air intake and the exhaust comes out the exhaust pipe the electrical current for the spark travels through the ignition system there is a separate Supply system for each of these separate functions I suppose that the Creator could have provided a separate supply line to each cell in the body for each of these functions but he didn't instead he did something far more wonderful something an automotive engineer would say is absolutely impossible he combined them all in a single common system the bloodstream and the story of that red liquid which is sent plunging through the arteries and veins of your body With Every Beat of your heart is the most amazing the most fabulous the most fantastic story in the physical Universe if it were possible for you to shrink to the size of a tiny microbe and then enter the bloodstream for a trip through the circulatory system you would find yourself caught up in a torrent of traffic that would by comparison make the busiest freeway look like a lonely desert road you would see the red cells performing their unbelievable chemical magic loads of sugar fat chemicals and minerals would be speeding from processing plants to delivery points throughout the body loads of refu and waste material would be in root to salvage yards or disposal plants you would see skilled mechanics hurrying to replace worn out or damaged parts of in the cell Motors of the body you would see an amazing traffic control system with stop and go signals at every byway intersection all controlled by an electronic brain so that every pickup and delivery is made at the right place and at just the right time if however in shrinking to the size of a microb you turned out to be a harmful bacteria or even a suspicious character you'd never get into the bloodstream a ghostly giant would come out through the capillary wall without even making a hole and Gobble you up these Lively ghosts are the white cells or Lucy they form an army of 35 billion police prepared to keep the peace or repell an invasion you remember we said that each cell of the body is like a tiny motor and the food you eat provides the fuel to keep it running but it takes more than fuel to make a motor rough did you know that the motor of your family car uses more than 9,000 Gall of air for every gallon of gasoline now the human body is very efficient in its use of oxygen but even so it requires at least 4 gallons of pure oxygen per hour just to keep your tiny Motors idling when your body is at rest but when we are active the demand can jump to 75 Gall or more of pure oxygen per hour this oxygen must be transported from the lungs to the tissue cells throughout the body the only possible way for oxygen to reach these cells is through the bloodstream and yet it was obvious that it couldn't possibly be carried as a gas that would be fatal if you inject air into the bloodstream a vapor lock develops the heart stops beating that's the reason why a physician is so careful to remove all of the air from a hypodermic surge before making an injection the answer to this riddle was discovered in the wonderful chemistry of the red blood cell the molecule of hemoglobin is the largest and most complex yet discovered discovered in nature in each molecule there are 3,32 atoms of carbon 4,812 atoms of hydrogen and so on and then tucked away down here in the middle of this Atomic jungle are four little iron atoms atoms upon which your very life depends as the Red Cell passes through your lungs it picks up a load of oxygen and converts it into a solid by an instantaneous rusting of these iron atoms but the process is also reversible your blood can unrust just as quickly when the oxygen reaches the cell that needs it it is changed back into a gas and delivered to the cell ready for use but on the return trip your blood isn't loafing it's performing another task that is just as vital and even more complex than carrying oxygen to the cell it is carrying the exhaust gas from the cell Motors of your body now we all know that the exhaust from an automobile is a dangerous thing for the exhaust from the tissue cells of your body can be just as deadly the exhaust gas from the tissue cells is principally carbon dioxide it is a colorless odorless invisible tasteless gas this speaker is filled filled with carbon dioxide gas the gas remains in the beaker because it's heavier than air and for the same reason it can be poured almost like a liquid the carbon dioxide extinguishes the candles very quickly and it could snuff out your life just as quickly if it weren't for another chemical Miracle performed by the bloodstream in many ways carbon dioxide is a more difficult substance than oxygen for the blood to handle Like Oxygen it must be converted from a gas into a solid but in addition it must have very special treatment to render it harmless in the bloodstream to keep it from poisoning the bloodstream now in one of the fastest reactions known to chemistry the carbon dioxide is snatched from the tissues of the body by the red blood cell and then hydrated to form carbonic acid but neither the Red Cell nor the bloodstream can tolerate this acid so it must be neutralized instantly for this purpose the blood has been storing up pottassium the fastest acting acid fighter on the chemist shell this is a weak solution of carbonic acid after the acid is neutralized the Red Cell dumps it into the bloodstream where it combines with the salt and the plasma to form of all things ordinary baking soda in this safe and harmless form it is carried through the veins to the lungs but here another problem arises our lungs aren't equipped to Exhale baking soda so the red cell goes to work again in a split second it collects the stuff and puts it all back together again as carbon dioxide passes it through the capillary wall into the lungs and we exhale it into the air and remember it must do all of this quickly enough so that there is time left over for the Red Cell to pick up another load of oxygen and convert it into a solid before it reaches the end of a tiny capillary less than 150th of an inent length to expect a red flood cell to do all of this is like asking a man to engrave The Lord's Prayer on the head of a pin as he passes that pin after being shot out of a cannon yes your life hangs by a very slender but by a very wonderful threat now of course the most publicized part of the circulatory system is the heart we can easily run out of supera lives in describing this fabulous little two-cylinder pump in the realm of efficient design it's in a class by itself each side of the heart has its own pair of valve the mitro valve resembles a parachute delicate cords called cord tendon are fastened to the edge of the valve and to the heart wall when the cus billow out to close the opening the cords are just the right length to let the valve go closed but no further the aortic valve is of a different design three small cusps form Pockets around the inside of the artery wall we can learn a lot about the Heart by studying it in this fashion but there's Vital Information that can be obtained only by looking directly inside an actual human heart while it is beating that sounds impossible does it well until recently it has been impossible but here at the Moody Institute of science working in cooperation with the famous heart surgeon we have designed a means of viewing the heart under these exact conditions this is an actual human heart just a few hours ago it was pumping blood through the body of a living human being its owner willed his heart to Medical Science that we might study it and gain new knowledge of its living function knowledge that someday May save the lives of others the machine causes the heart to beat and to perform normally as a fluid pump just as it does in the body we have installed viewing ports over the valves so that we may study their action at close range this is the mitro valve of the left heart observe how rhythmically it opens and closes permitting the heart to fill and then hold firmly against the pressure as the fluid is expelled this is the same valve as it appears from inside the heart note the delicate cords that restrain the parachute likee cusps this is the aortic valve with its three semi luminer cusps sealing tightly against the return flow let's take a look at the underside of this same bow with this machine we can study the heart under a variety of conditions we can increase or decrease the pulse rate by restricting the flow coming from the heart we can raise the blood pressure and then observe the action of the heart and valves just as they would function in a patient who has high blood pressure by restricting the flow entering the heart we can see what happens when low blood pressures the problem if we restrict the flow sufficiently we can simulate the condition of a person in shock the heart is pumping quite well is it yes but this heart has always worked well it served its own for 85 years and during that time it beat 3 b400 million times and pumped enough blood to fill a good-sized lake all this without a single shutdown for repairs a pump fashioned of the finest Steel by the most skilled Craftsman could not begin to match the endurance of the human heart of course like any tissue of the body the heart is subject to its share of disease and injury a normal healthy heart can stand an enormous amount of work but disease can cause serious damage in recent years amazing techniques have been developed for actually making repairs on a human heart oh so far I haven't heard of anyone taking his heart in to have the valves ground but believe it or not damaged heart valves have been replaced with plastic valves just like this the valve is inserted in the descending aarta just above the heart this is an actual x-ray motion picture of such a valve that has been functioning in a patient for some time I hope that you never need an artificial valve in your heart but if you do you'll be glad to know that uh a plastic valve like this costs about $85 of course there's usually an installation charge and there should be for heart surgery is one of the most exacting and difficult of all professions trying to perform a delicate operation on a human heart while it is beating is much like trying to grind the valves or tighten the connecting rods on the motor of your car while it is running obviously the job would be much easier if the heart could be stopped during an operation a great deal of engineering and medical skill has been devoted to solving this problem a number of heart lung machines have been designed to take over the task of pumping the blood while repairs are being made on the heart one of the first really practical heart lung machines was designed by Dr Peter Salsbury renowned physiologist during an operation on the heart the heart is actually stopped and the machine both pumps and breathes for the patient during the operation it is comforting to know that a damaged heart can be repaired today heart can't even be transplanted and thus replaced but to those who have considered the heart the mystical Wellspring of life it it is a bit confusing and somewhat disconcerting to find that the heart wonderful and amazing though what may be is just a pump a pump which for a time at least can be replaced by a machine have you ever wondered about the peculiar shape of the red blood cell someone has described it as a cross between a donut and a pancake now if you or I had been designing the red blood cell we probably would have made it spherical for a sphere is the simplest of all compact shapes and in many ways the most efficient it has much greater volume than the biconcave disc of the red blood cell it's the strongest of all shapes and it's the shape that would pass through the intricate Maze of the blood vessels with greatest ease but it has one fatal weakness it wouldn't work here at the laboratory we've made models of several po blood cells we've cut them so that we can observe their cross-section as they're immersed in a colored liquid and thus determine the rate at which the liquid is absorbed with the sphere absorption is rapid at first but near the center the process Slows To A Snail's Pace it is obvious that a spherical cell would be much too slow for the job of course the most obvious solution would be to flatten the sphere into a disc and in actual tests it is clear that this does solve the problem of Rapid absorption the disc has adequate speed but not enough volume the ideal red cell shape is one that would combine volume speed and durability now it isn't necessary for us to guess what this ideal shape should be it can be determined scientifically and mathematically starting with the laws of gas infusion and then applying the principles of advanced calculus it is possible to derive a formula that will give maximum volume with maximum speed in absorbing gases this is that formula it allows for all the variables we have just described the laws of gas infusion volume surface area and time the men here at the laboratory worked for several weeks with this formula to establish a relatively few points indicating the ideal shape these seem to coincide with the actual shape of the Red Cell but we needed more complete and reliable evidence so we submitted the problem to the applied science department of the international business machine Corporation Dr Edgar Smith IBM mathematician set up the problem for a solution on one of the giant research computers All That Remains is to push the right button and 10,000 things happen faster than we can describe and the answer to our problem appears on the oscilloscope screen this is the cross-sectional shape of the actual red blood cell and this is a photograph of the shape on the IBM research computer derived from the formula for an ideal red blood cell the fact that the red blood cell turns out to be the one perfect ideal shape demands an explanation and to me the the only adequate explanation is intelligent design but the question arises whose intelligence is involved well one thing is certain it wasn't man's intelligence we had nothing to do with it but there it is the ideal perfect shape it would seem that if a man wants to believe in God he has just within the red blood cells of his body at least 30 trillion very good reasons for doing so in recent years there have been many wonderful things discovered concerning the human body and today for the young person who is choosing a career or planning a life of service the field should offer a tremendous Challenge and yet there are some who seem to feel that the age of medical Discovery is over that everything that could possibly be known about the human body is already known well of course it's true that the day of Harvey and liser and Pastor is gone but the go of medical Discovery lies just ahead who will make these discoveries not the brilliant loer but rather the young person of today who is willing to dedicate himself to preparation for tomorrow one who's willing to study to learn from those who have gone before that someday he may with quiet confidence Venture into that vast unknown in the future one who is willing to approach the task with diligence with humility and