Human eye
The human eye is an organ which reacts to light and pressure. As a sense organ, the mammalian eye allows vision. Human eyes help to provide a three dimensional, moving image coloured in daylight. Rod and cone cells in the retina allow conscious light perception and vision including color differentiation and the perception of depth; the human eye can differentiate between about 10 million colors and is capable of detecting a single photon. Similar to the eyes of other mammals, the human eye's non-image-forming photosensitive ganglion cells in the retina receive light signals which affect adjustment of the size of the pupil and suppression of the hormone melatonin and entrainment of the body clock; the eye is not shaped like a perfect sphere, rather it is a fused two-piece unit, composed of the anterior segment and the posterior segment. The anterior segment is made up of the cornea and lens; the cornea is transparent and more curved, is linked to the larger posterior segment, composed of the vitreous, retina and the outer white shell called the sclera.
The cornea is about 11.5 mm in diameter, 1/2 mm in thickness near its center. The posterior chamber constitutes the remaining five-sixths; the cornea and sclera are connected by an area termed the limbus. The iris is the pigmented circular structure concentrically surrounding the center of the eye, the pupil, which appears to be black; the size of the pupil, which controls the amount of light entering the eye, is adjusted by the iris' dilator and sphincter muscles. Light energy enters the eye through the cornea, through the pupil and through the lens; the lens shape is controlled by the ciliary muscle. Photons of light falling on the light-sensitive cells of the retina are converted into electrical signals that are transmitted to the brain by the optic nerve and interpreted as sight and vision. Dimensions differ among adults by only one or two millimetres, remarkably consistent across different ethnicities; the vertical measure less than the horizontal, is about 24 mm. The transverse size of a human adult eye is 24.2 mm and the sagittal size is 23.7 mm with no significant difference between sexes and age groups.
Strong correlation has been found between the width of the orbit. The typical adult eye has an anterior to posterior diameter of 24 millimetres, a volume of six cubic centimetres, a mass of 7.5 grams.. The eyeball grows increasing from about 16–17 millimetres at birth to 22.5–23 mm by three years of age. By age 12, the eye attains its full size; the eye is made up of layers, enclosing various anatomical structures. The outermost layer, known as the fibrous tunic, is composed of the sclera; the middle layer, known as the vascular tunic or uvea, consists of the choroid, ciliary body, pigmented epithelium and iris. The innermost is the retina, which gets its oxygenation from the blood vessels of the choroid as well as the retinal vessels; the spaces of the eye are filled with the aqueous humour anteriorly, between the cornea and lens, the vitreous body, a jelly-like substance, behind the lens, filling the entire posterior cavity. The aqueous humour is a clear watery fluid, contained in two areas: the anterior chamber between the cornea and the iris, the posterior chamber between the iris and the lens.
The lens is suspended to the ciliary body by the suspensory ligament, made up of hundreds of fine transparent fibers which transmit muscular forces to change the shape of the lens for accommodation. The vitreous body is a clear substance composed of water and proteins, which give it a jelly-like and sticky composition; the approximate field of view of an individual human eye varies by facial anatomy, but is 30° superior, 45° nasal, 70° inferior, 100° temporal. For both eyes combined visual field is 200 ° horizontal, it is 13700 square degrees for binocular vision. When viewed at large angles from the side, the iris and pupil may still be visible by the viewer, indicating the person has peripheral vision possible at that angle. About 15° temporal and 1.5° below the horizontal is the blind spot created by the optic nerve nasally, 7.5° high and 5.5° wide. The retina has a static contrast ratio of around 100:1; as soon as the eye moves to acquire a target, it re-adjusts its exposure by adjusting the iris, which adjusts the size of the pupil.
Initial dark adaptation takes place in four seconds of profound, uninterrupted darkness. The process is nonlinear and multifaceted, so an interruption by light exposure requires restarting the dark adaptation process over again. Full adaptation is dependent on good blood flow; the human eye can detect a luminance range of 1014, or one hundred trillion, from 10−6 cd/m2, or one millionth of a candela per square meter to 108 cd/m2 or one hundred million candelas per square meter. This range does not include looking at the midday lightning discharge. At the low end o
Capillary
A capillary is a small blood vessel from 5 to 10 micrometres in diameter, having a wall one endothelial cell thick. They are the smallest blood vessels in the body: they convey blood between the arterioles and venules; these microvessels are the site of exchange of many substances with the interstitial fluid surrounding them. Substances which exit include water and glucose. Lymph capillaries connect with larger lymph vessels to drain lymphatic fluid collected in the microcirculation. During early embryonic development new capillaries are formed through vasculogenesis, the process of blood vessel formation that occurs through a de novo production of endothelial cells which form vascular tubes; the term angiogenesis denotes the formation of new capillaries from pre-existing blood vessels and present endothelium which divides. Blood flows from the heart through arteries, which branch and narrow into arterioles, branch further into capillaries where nutrients and wastes are exchanged; the capillaries join and widen to become venules, which in turn widen and converge to become veins, which return blood back to the heart through the venae cavae.
Individual capillaries are part of the capillary bed, an interweaving network of capillaries supplying tissues and organs. The more metabolically active a tissue is, the more capillaries are required to supply nutrients and carry away waste products. There are two types of capillaries: true capillaries, which branch from arterioles and provide exchange between tissue and the capillary blood, metarterioles, found only in the mesenteric circulation, they are short vessels that directly connect the arterioles and venules at opposite ends of the beds. Metarterioles are found in the mesenteric microcirculation; the physiological mechanisms underlying precapillary resistance is no longer considered to be a result of precapillary sphincters outside of the mesentery organ. Lymphatic capillaries are larger in diameter than blood capillaries, have closed ends; this structure permits interstitial fluid to flow into them but not out. Lymph capillaries have a greater internal oncotic pressure than blood capillaries, due to the greater concentration of plasma proteins in the lymph.
There are three types of blood capillaries: Continuous capillaries are continuous in the sense that the endothelial cells provide an uninterrupted lining, they only allow smaller molecules, such as water and ions to pass through their intercellular clefts. Lipid-soluble molecules can passively diffuse through the endothelial cell membranes along concentration gradients. Continuous capillaries can be further divided into two subtypes: Those with numerous transport vesicles, which are found in skeletal muscles, fingers and skin; those with few vesicles, which are found in the central nervous system. These capillaries are a constituent of the blood–brain barrier. Fenestrated capillaries have pores in the endothelial cells that are spanned by a diaphragm of radially oriented fibrils and allow small molecules and limited amounts of protein to diffuse. In the renal glomerulus there are cells with no diaphragms, called podocyte foot processes or pedicels, which have slit pores with a function analogous to the diaphragm of the capillaries.
Both of these types of blood vessels have continuous basal laminae and are located in the endocrine glands, intestines and the glomeruli of the kidney. Sinusoid capillaries are a special type of open-pore capillary, that have larger openings in the endothelium; these types of blood vessels allow red and white blood cells and various serum proteins to pass, aided by a discontinuous basal lamina. These capillaries lack pinocytotic vesicles, therefore utilize gaps present in cell junctions to permit transfer between endothelial cells, hence across the membrane. Sinusoid blood vessels are located in the bone marrow, lymph nodes, adrenal glands; some sinusoids are distinctive in. They are called discontinuous sinusoidal capillaries, are present in the liver and spleen, where greater movement of cells and materials is necessary. A capillary wall is simple squamous epithelium; the capillary wall performs an important function by allowing nutrients and waste substances to pass across it. Molecules larger than 3 nm such as albumin and other large proteins pass through transcellular transport carried inside vesicles, a process which requires them to go through the cells that form the wall.
Molecules smaller than 3 nm such as water and gases cross the capillary wall through the space between cells in a process known as paracellular transport. These transport mechanisms allow bidirectional exchange of substances depending on osmotic gradients and can be further quantified by the Starling equation. Capillaries that form part of the blood–brain barrier however only allow for transcellular transport as tight junctions between endothelial cells seal the paracellular space. Capillary beds may control their blood flow via autoregulation; this allows an organ to maintain constant flow despite a change in central blood pressure. This is achieved by myogenic response, in the kidney by tubuloglomerular feedback; when blood pressure increases, arterioles are stretched and subsequently constrict to counteract the
Human anus
The human anus is the external opening of the rectum. Two sphincters control the exit of feces from the body during an act of defecation, the primary function of the anus; these are the internal anal sphincter and the external anal sphincter, which are circular muscles that maintain constriction of the orifice and which relaxes as required by normal physiological functioning. The inner sphincter is involuntary and the outer is voluntary, it is located behind the perineum, located behind the vagina in females and behind the scrotum in males. With anal sex, the anus can play a role in sexuality. Attitudes towards anal sex vary and it is illegal in some countries; the anus is considered a taboo part of the body, it is known by a large number of vulgar slang terms. The anus is the site of potential infections and other conditions, including cancer; the traditional polite synonym for anus was fundament, though this euphemism is heard now that medical terms are acceptable. The anus is the final component of the gastrointestinal tract, directly continues from the rectum.
The anus passes through the pelvic floor. The anus is surrounded by muscles; the top and bottom of the anus are surrounded by the internal and external anal sphincters, two muscular rings which control defecation. The anus is surrounded in its length by folds called anal valves, which converge at a line known as the pectinate line; this represents the point of the ectoderm in the embryo. Below this point, the mucosa of the internal anus becomes skin; the pectinate line is the division between the internal and external anus. The anus receives blood from the inferior rectal artery and innervation from the inferior rectal nerves, which branch from the pudendal nerve; the pseudostratified columnar epithelium of the gastrointestinal tract transitions to stratified squamous epithelium at the pectinate line. The stratified squamous epithelium accumulates sebaceous and apocrine glands. During puberty, as testosterone triggers androgenic hair growth on the body, pubic hair begins to appear around the anus.
Although sparse, it fills out by the end of puberty, if not earlier. However, in some genetic populations androgenic hair is less common. Intra-rectal pressure builds as the rectum fills with feces, pushing the feces against the walls of the anal canal. Contractions of abdominal and pelvic floor muscles can create intra-abdominal pressure which further increases intra-rectal pressure; the internal anal sphincter responds to the pressure by relaxing, thus allowing the feces to enter the canal. The rectum shortens as feces are pushed into the anal canal and peristaltic waves push the feces out of the rectum. Relaxation of the internal and external anal sphincters allows the feces to exit from the anus as the levator ani muscles pull the anus up over the exiting feces. Birth defects, including imperforation, Tailgut cyst Fistula and anal fissure Hemorrhoids Anal abscesses Sexually transmitted infections Anal warts called "anal condyloma" Anal cancer called "anal carcinoma", Anal intraepithelial neoplasia Itchiness, called Pruritus ani Trauma.
In psychology, the Freudian term anal fixation is used. The anus has a high concentration of nerve endings and can be an erogenous zone, which can make anal intercourse pleasurable if performed properly; the pudendal nerve that branches to supply the external anal sphincter branches to the dorsal nerve of the clitoris and the dorsal nerve of the penis. Sigmund Freud's theory of psychosexual development, for example, described an anal stage, hypothesizing that toddlers derive pleasure from retaining and expelling feces; this is the source of the term "anal-retentive" and the derived informal term "anal". In addition to nerve endings, pleasure from anal intercourse may be aided by the close proximity between the anus and the prostate for males, vagina, clitoral legs and anal area for females; this is because of indirect stimulation of the vagina or clitoral legs. For a male insertive partner, the tightness of the anus can be a source of pleasure via the tactile pressure on the penis. Pleasure from the anus can be achieved through anal masturbation, facesitting and other penetrative and non-penetrative acts.
Anal stretching or fisting is pleasurable for some, but it poses a more serious threat of damage due to the deliberate stretching of the anal and rectal tissues. Lubricant and condoms are regarded as a necessity while performing anal sex as well as a slow and cautious penetration. Anal intercourse is sometimes referred to as sodomy or buggery, is considered taboo in a number of legal systems, it has been, in some jurisdictions continues to be, a crime carrying severe punishment. To prevent diseases of the anus and to promote general hygiene, humans clean the exterior of the anus after emptying the bowels. A rinse with water from a bidet or a wipe with toilet paper is used for this purpose, though anal cleansing practices vary between cultures. Shaving, depilatory, or Brazilian waxing can clear the perineum of hair. Anal bleaching is a process in which the anus and perineum, which may darken after puberty depending on individual genetics, is lig
Anatomical terms of muscle
Muscles are described using unique anatomical terminology according to their actions and structure. There are three types of muscle tissue in the human body: skeletal and cardiac. Skeletal striated muscle, or "voluntary muscle" joins to bone with tendons. Skeletal muscle maintains posture. Smooth muscle tissue is found in parts of the body; the majority of this type of muscle tissue is found in the digestive and urinary systems where it acts by propelling forward food and feces in the former and urine in the latter. Other places smooth muscle can be found are within the uterus, where it helps facilitate birth, the eye, where the pupillary sphincter controls pupil size. Cardiac muscle is specific to the heart, it is involuntary in its movement, is additionally self-excitatory, contracting without outside stimuli. As well as anatomical terms of motion, which describe the motion made by a muscle, unique terminology is used to describe the action of a set of muscles. Agonist muscles and antagonist muscles refer to muscles that inhibit a movement.
Agonist muscles cause a movement to occur through their own activation. For example, the triceps brachii contracts, producing a shortening contraction, during the up phase of a push-up. During the down phase of a push-up, the same triceps brachii controls elbow flexion while producing a lengthening contraction, it is still the agonist, because while resisting gravity during relaxing, the triceps brachii continues to be the prime mover, or controller, of the joint action. Agonists are interchangeably referred to as "prime movers," since they are the muscles considered responsible for generating or controlling a specific movement. Another example is the dumbbell curl at the elbow; the "elbow flexor" group is the agonist. During the lowering phase the "elbow flexor" muscles lengthen, remaining the agonists because they are controlling the load and the movement. For both the lifting and lowering phase, the "elbow extensor" muscles are the antagonists, they shorten during the dumbbell lowering phase.
Here it is important to understand that it is common practice to give a name to a muscle group based on the joint action they produce during a shortening contraction. However, this naming convention does not mean; this term describes the function of skeletal muscles. Antagonist muscles are the muscles that produce an opposing joint torque to the agonist muscles; this torque can aid in controlling a motion. The opposing torque can slow movement down - in the case of a ballistic movement. For example, during a rapid discrete movement of the elbow, such as throwing a dart, the triceps muscles will be activated briefly and to accelerate the extension movement at the elbow, followed immediately by a "burst" of activation to the elbow flexor muscles that decelerates the elbow movement to arrive at a quick stop. To use an automotive analogy, this would be similar to pressing your gas pedal and immediately pressing the brake. Antagonism is not an intrinsic property of a particular muscle group. During slower joint actions that involve gravity, just as with the agonist muscle, the antagonist muscle can shorten and lengthen.
Using the example above of the triceps brachii during a push-up, the elbow flexor muscles are the antagonists at the elbow during both the up phase and down phase of the movement. During the dumbbell curl, the elbow extensors are the antagonists for both the lifting and lowering phases. Antagonist and agonist muscles occur in pairs, called antagonistic pairs; as one muscle contracts, the other relaxes. An example of an antagonistic pair is the triceps. "Reverse motions" need antagonistic pairs located in opposite sides of a joint or bone, including abductor-adductor pairs and flexor-extensor pairs. These consist of an extensor muscle, which "opens" the joint and a flexor muscle, which does the opposite by decreasing the angle between two bones. However, muscles don't always work this way. Sometimes during a joint action controlled by an agonist muscle, the antagonist will be activated, naturally; this occurs and is not considered to be a problem unless it is excessive or uncontrolled and disturbs the control of the joint action.
This serves to mechanically stiffen the joint. Not all muscles are paired in this way. An example of an exception is the deltoid. Synergist muscles help perform, the same set of joint motion as the agonists. Synergists muscles act on movable joints. Synergists are sometimes referred to as "neutralizers" because they help cancel out, or neutralize, extra motion from the agonists to make sure that the force generated works within the desired plane of motion. Muscle fibers can only contract up to 40% of their stretched length, thus the short fibers of pennate muscles are more suitable where power rather than range of contraction is required. This limitation in the range of contraction affects all muscles, those that act over several joints may be unable to shorten sufficiently to produce
Sphincter of Oddi
The sphincter of Oddi, abbreviated as SO, is a muscular valve that controls the flow of digestive juices through the ampulla of Vater into the second part of the duodenum. It is named after Ruggero Oddi; the sphincter of Oddi is relaxed by the hormone cholecystokinin via vasoactive intestinal peptide. Opiates can cause spasms of the sphincter of Oddi. In many mammals, the smooth muscle around the ampulla of Vater does not form a sphincter; the sphincter was described for the first time by Ruggero Oddi when he was a young student in 1887. This followed extensive research on the physiology of dogs and had made detailed histological examinations of humans, many other species. Gray's Anatomy, 39th ed. p. 1228. Ballal, M. A.. A.. "Physiology of the sphincter of Oddi--the present and the future?--Part 1". Saudi Journal of Gastroenterology. 6: 129–46. PMID 19864708. Ballal, M. A.. A.. "Physiology of the sphincter of Oddi: The present and the future?--Part 2". Saudi Journal of Gastroenterology. 7: 6–21. PMID 19861760
Acid
An acid is a molecule or ion capable of donating a hydron, or, capable of forming a covalent bond with an electron pair. The first category of acids is the proton donors or Brønsted acids. In the special case of aqueous solutions, proton donors form the hydronium ion H3O+ and are known as Arrhenius acids. Brønsted and Lowry generalized the Arrhenius theory to include non-aqueous solvents. A Brønsted or Arrhenius acid contains a hydrogen atom bonded to a chemical structure, still energetically favorable after loss of H+. Aqueous Arrhenius acids have characteristic properties which provide a practical description of an acid. Acids form aqueous solutions with a sour taste, can turn blue litmus red, react with bases and certain metals to form salts; the word acid is derived from the Latin acidus/acēre meaning sour. An aqueous solution of an acid has a pH less than 7 and is colloquially referred to as'acid', while the strict definition refers only to the solute. A lower pH means a higher acidity, thus a higher concentration of positive hydrogen ions in the solution.
Chemicals or substances having the property of an acid are said to be acidic. Common aqueous acids include hydrochloric acid, acetic acid, sulfuric acid, citric acid; as these examples show, acids can be solutions or pure substances, can be derived from acids that are solids, liquids, or gases. Strong acids and some concentrated weak acids are corrosive, but there are exceptions such as carboranes and boric acid; the second category of acids are Lewis acids. An example is boron trifluoride, whose boron atom has a vacant orbital which can form a covalent bond by sharing a lone pair of electrons on an atom in a base, for example the nitrogen atom in ammonia. Lewis considered this as a generalization of the Brønsted definition, so that an acid is a chemical species that accepts electron pairs either directly or by releasing protons into the solution, which accept electron pairs. However, hydrogen chloride, acetic acid, most other Brønsted-Lowry acids cannot form a covalent bond with an electron pair and are therefore not Lewis acids.
Conversely, many Lewis acids are not Brønsted-Lowry acids. In modern terminology, an acid is implicitly a Brønsted acid and not a Lewis acid, since chemists always refer to a Lewis acid explicitly as a Lewis acid. Modern definitions are concerned with the fundamental chemical reactions common to all acids. Most acids encountered in everyday life are aqueous solutions, or can be dissolved in water, so the Arrhenius and Brønsted-Lowry definitions are the most relevant; the Brønsted-Lowry definition is the most used definition. Hydronium ions are acids according to all three definitions. Although alcohols and amines can be Brønsted-Lowry acids, they can function as Lewis bases due to the lone pairs of electrons on their oxygen and nitrogen atoms; the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius attributed the properties of acidity to hydrogen ions or protons in 1884. An Arrhenius acid is a substance that, when added to water, increases the concentration of H+ ions in the water. Note that chemists write H+ and refer to the hydrogen ion when describing acid-base reactions but the free hydrogen nucleus, a proton, does not exist alone in water, it exists as the hydronium ion, H3O+.
Thus, an Arrhenius acid can be described as a substance that increases the concentration of hydronium ions when added to water. Examples include molecular substances such as acetic acid. An Arrhenius base, on the other hand, is a substance which increases the concentration of hydroxide ions when dissolved in water; this decreases the concentration of hydronium because the ions react to form H2O molecules: H3O+ + OH− ⇌ H2O + H2ODue to this equilibrium, any increase in the concentration of hydronium is accompanied by a decrease in the concentration of hydroxide. Thus, an Arrhenius acid could be said to be one that decreases hydroxide concentration, while an Arrhenius base increases it. In an acidic solution, the concentration of hydronium ions is greater than 10−7 moles per liter. Since pH is defined as the negative logarithm of the concentration of hydronium ions, acidic solutions thus have a pH of less than 7. While the Arrhenius concept is useful for describing many reactions, it is quite limited in its scope.
In 1923 chemists Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted and Thomas Martin Lowry independently recognized that acid-base reactions involve the transfer of a proton. A Brønsted-Lowry acid is a species. Brønsted-Lowry acid-base theory has several advantages over Arrhenius theory. Consider the following reactions of acetic acid, the organic acid that gives vinegar its characteristic taste: CH3COOH + H2O ⇌ CH3COO− + H3O+ CH3COOH + NH3 ⇌ CH3COO− + NH+4Both theories describe the first reaction: CH3COOH acts as an Arrhenius acid because it acts as a source of H3O+ when dissolved in water, it acts as a Brønsted acid by donating a proton to water. In the second example CH3COOH undergoes the same transformation, in this case donating a proton to ammonia, but does not relate to the Arrhenius definition of an acid because the reaction does not produce hydronium. CH3COOH is
Blood
Blood is a body fluid in humans and other animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. In vertebrates, it is composed of blood cells suspended in blood plasma. Plasma, which constitutes 55% of blood fluid, is water, contains proteins, mineral ions, carbon dioxide, blood cells themselves. Albumin is the main protein in plasma, it functions to regulate the colloidal osmotic pressure of blood; the blood cells are red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. The most abundant cells in vertebrate blood are red blood cells; these contain hemoglobin, an iron-containing protein, which facilitates oxygen transport by reversibly binding to this respiratory gas and increasing its solubility in blood. In contrast, carbon dioxide is transported extracellularly as bicarbonate ion transported in plasma. Vertebrate blood is bright red when its hemoglobin is oxygenated and dark red when it is deoxygenated.
Some animals, such as crustaceans and mollusks, use hemocyanin to carry oxygen, instead of hemoglobin. Insects and some mollusks use a fluid called hemolymph instead of blood, the difference being that hemolymph is not contained in a closed circulatory system. In most insects, this "blood" does not contain oxygen-carrying molecules such as hemoglobin because their bodies are small enough for their tracheal system to suffice for supplying oxygen. Jawed vertebrates have an adaptive immune system, based on white blood cells. White blood cells help to resist parasites. Platelets are important in the clotting of blood. Arthropods, using hemolymph, have hemocytes as part of their immune system. Blood is circulated around the body through blood vessels by the pumping action of the heart. In animals with lungs, arterial blood carries oxygen from inhaled air to the tissues of the body, venous blood carries carbon dioxide, a waste product of metabolism produced by cells, from the tissues to the lungs to be exhaled.
Medical terms related to blood begin with hemo- or hemato- from the Greek word αἷμα for "blood". In terms of anatomy and histology, blood is considered a specialized form of connective tissue, given its origin in the bones and the presence of potential molecular fibers in the form of fibrinogen. Blood performs many important functions within the body, including: Supply of oxygen to tissues Supply of nutrients such as glucose, amino acids, fatty acids Removal of waste such as carbon dioxide and lactic acid Immunological functions, including circulation of white blood cells, detection of foreign material by antibodies Coagulation, the response to a broken blood vessel, the conversion of blood from a liquid to a semisolid gel to stop bleeding Messenger functions, including the transport of hormones and the signaling of tissue damage Regulation of core body temperature Hydraulic functions Blood accounts for 7% of the human body weight, with an average density around 1060 kg/m3 close to pure water's density of 1000 kg/m3.
The average adult has a blood volume of 5 litres, composed of plasma and several kinds of cells. These blood cells consist of erythrocytes and thrombocytes. By volume, the red blood cells constitute about 45% of whole blood, the plasma about 54.3%, white cells about 0.7%. Whole blood exhibits non-Newtonian fluid dynamics. If all human hemoglobin were free in the plasma rather than being contained in RBCs, the circulatory fluid would be too viscous for the cardiovascular system to function effectively. One microliter of blood contains: 4.7 to 6.1 million, 4.2 to 5.4 million erythrocytes: Red blood cells contain the blood's hemoglobin and distribute oxygen. Mature red blood cells lack a nucleus and organelles in mammals; the red blood cells are marked by glycoproteins that define the different blood types. The proportion of blood occupied by red blood cells is referred to as the hematocrit, is about 45%; the combined surface area of all red blood cells of the human body would be 2,000 times as great as the body's exterior surface.
4,000–11,000 leukocytes: White blood cells are part of the body's immune system. The cancer of leukocytes is called leukemia. 200,000 -- 500,000 thrombocytes: Also called platelets. Fibrin from the coagulation cascade creates a mesh over the platelet plug. About 55% of blood is blood plasma, a fluid, the blood's liquid medium, which by itself is straw-yellow in color; the blood plasma volume totals of 2.7–3.0 liters in an average human. It is an aqueous solution containing 92% water, 8% blood plasma proteins, trace amounts of other materials. Plasma circulates dissolved nutrients, such as glucose, amino acids, fatty acids, removes waste products, such as carbon dioxide and lactic acid. Other important components include: Serum albumin Blood-clotting factors Immunoglobulins lipoprotein particles Various
