©FUN MEDICAL FACTS©
Pregnancy & Babies
Rösslin, a German physician to the city of Frankfurt, Germany, published the earliest printed illustrated manual for midwives in 1506.
The largest cell in the human body is the Ova, the female reproductive cell. The smallest cell in the human body is the Sperm, the male reproductive cell.
A female baby is born with about 400.000 ova, which start to mature at puberty.
In three milliliters of semen there are between 200-500 MILLION sperm. One million sperm will fit on a pinhead.
During pregnancy, the uterus expands to 500 times its normal size.
The English physician Ian Donald invented ultrasound in 1957, and one year later, it was used on a pregnant woman.
Birthing Units are busy places during a full moon and thunderstorms.
A newborn baby's head accounts for about one-quarter of its entire weight.
Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood we have only 206 in our bodies. The reason? Some bones fuse together later.
More in-vitro babies are born in Australia than anywhere else in the world.
The first obstetric forceps appeared around 1580, probably invented by Peter Chamberlen, but remained a closely guarded trade secret until the 1730s.
Human Embryos have been 'grown' in Britain without using sperm using a process called parthenogenesis, which means 'virgin birth' in Greek.
The Heart
The heart is the strongest muscle in the body
In an average lifetime, the heart beats more than two and a half billion times, without ever pausing to rest.
The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet
The first heart operation using bypass (where the blood is oxygenated outside the body) was performed in 1955 by US surgeon, Walton Lillehei at the University of Minnesota hospital. He is also the father of the pacemaker.
The Head and the Brain
The human head consists of twenty-two bones.
Our eyes remain the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
The brain uses more energy than any other organ in the body, about one-fifth of all food intake.
The human brain has more than 100 billion neurons (nerve cells), yet there is no sense of pain within the brain itself.
The nerve impulses travel at more than 400 km/h (250 mph).
The Brain has a separate region especially reserved for the thumb.
The average person has over 1460 dreams a years.
The Eyes
The Cornea is the only part of the human body that has no blood supply. It takes oxygen directly from the air.
The total length of all eyelashes shed by a human in their lifetime is over 30 metres.
The Skin
There are on average 32 million bacteria on every square inch of the human body.
Human body smell is as distinctive and as individual as a fingerprint. It is unique to family groups.
An adult may have more than 20 square feet of skin, about the size of a blanket.
The Blood
Red blood cells live for about 120 days. Within a tiny droplet of blood, there are some 5 million red blood cells.
It takes about 20 seconds for a red blood cell to circle the whole body.
The bones of the ribs are of the of body's major blood cell 'factories.'
The Respiratory System
The surface area of the lungs is roughly the same size as a tennis court.
The capillaries in the lungs would extend 1,600 kilometres if placed end to end.
The highest recorded "sneeze speed" is 165 km per hour.
The Kidneys
1,514 litres of recycled blood are pumped through the kidneys every day.
The Digestive System
If the small intestine were straightened, it would elongate to a length of 22 feet.
