Anatomy Essentials For Dummies

Maggie A. Norris, Donna Rae Siegfried

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781119590217
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Anatomy

Anatomy Essentials For Dummies (9781119590156) was previously published as Anatomy Essentials For Dummies (9781118184219). While this version features a new Dummies cover and design, the content is the same as the prior release and should not be considered a new or updated product.

The core concepts you need to ace Anatomy

Perfect for those just starting out or returning to Anatomy after some time away, Anatomy Essentials For Dummies focuses on core concepts taught (and tested on!) in a typical Anatomy course. From names and technical terms to how the body works, you'll skip the suffering and score high marks at exam time with the help of Anatomy Essentials For Dummies.

Designed for students who want the key concepts and a few examples—without the review, ramp-up, and anecdotal content— Anatomy Essentials For Dummies is a perfect solution for exam-cramming, homework help, and reference.

• A useful and handy reference to the anatomy of the human body
• Perfect for a refresher or a quick reference
• Serves as an excellent review to score higher at exam time

If you have some knowledge of anatomy and want to polish your skills, Anatomy Essentials For Dummies focuses on just the core concepts you need to understand this fascinating topic.

Chapter 1

Focusing on the Framework of Anatomy and Physiology

IN THIS CHAPTER

Connecting anatomy and physiology and science

Making out anatomy jargon

Sorting organisms by life’s levels of organization

Discovering how metabolism works

Using homeostasis to maintain balance

Human anatomy is the science of the human body’s structures — things that can be touched, weighed, or analyzed. Human physiology is the chemistry and physics of these structures, including how they all work together to support the processes of life in each individual.

If you put these two subjects together, you have the means of understanding your body on a whole new level. This chapter sets up your study of anatomy and physiology by shining a light on the very framework of the subjects, from key terminology and the levels of organization within an organism to descriptions of metabolism and homeostasis.

Looking at the Science of Anatomy and Physiology

Human anatomy and physiology are closely related to biology, which is the science of living beings and their relationships with the rest of the universe, including all other living beings. If you’ve studied biology, you understand the basics of how organisms operate. Anatomy and physiology narrow the science of biology by looking at the specifics of one species: Homo sapiens.

Anatomy is structure; physiology is function. You can’t talk about one without talking about the other.

Fitting anatomy and physiology into science

Biologists take for granted that human anatomy and physiology evolved from the anatomy and physiology of ancient forms. These scientists base their work on the assumption that every structure and process, no matter how tiny in scope, must somehow contribute to the survival of the individual. So each process — and the structures within which the chemistry and physics of the process actually happen — must help keep the individual alive and meeting the relentless challenges of a continually changing environment. Evolution favors processes that work.

Human pathophysiology is the science of “human anatomy and physiology gone wrong.” (The prefix path- is Greek for “suffering.”) It’s the interface of human biology and medical science. Clinical medicine is the application of medical science to alleviate an anatomical or physiological problem in an individual human.

Breaking down the subsets of anatomy

The science of anatomy features the following major subsets (throughout this book, you encounter some information from each one):

• Gross anatomy: The study of the large parts of any animal body that can be seen with the unaided eye. (We concentrate on this aspect of anatomy in this book.)
• Histologic anatomy: The study of different tissue types and the cells that comprise them. Histologic anatomists use a variety of microscopes to study these cells and tissues that make up the body.
• Developmental anatomy: The study of the life cycle of the individual, from fertilized egg through adulthood, senescence (aging), and death. Body parts change throughout the life span.
• Comparative anatomy: The study of the similarities and differences among the anatomical structures of different species, including extinct species. This subject is closely related to evolutionary biology. Information from comparative anatomy helps scientists understand the human body’s structures and processes. For example, the comparative anatomy of humans and living and extinct apes elucidates the structures in the human limbs that enable the bipedal posture.

Familiarizing Yourself with Anatomical Jargon

Jargon is a set of words and phrases that people who know a lot about a particular subject use to talk together. You can find jargon in every field (scientific or not), every workplace, every town, and every home. Families and close friends almost always use jargon in conversations with one another. Plumbers use jargon to communicate about plumbing. Anatomists and physiologists use jargon and technical terminology, much of which is shared with medicine and other fields of biology, especially human biology.

Scientists try to create terminology that’s precise and easy to understand by developing it systematically. That is, they create new words by putting together existing and known elements. They use certain syllables or word fragments over and over to build new terms.

With a little help from this book, you can start recognizing some of these fragments. Then you can put the meanings of different fragments together and accurately guess the meaning of a term you’ve never seen before, just as you can understand a sentence you’ve never read before. Table 1-1 gets you started by listing some word fragments related to the organ systems we cover in this book.

TABLE 1-1 Technical Anatomical Word Fragments

...

Body System	Root or Word Fragment	Meaning
Skeletal system	os-, oste-	bone
	arth-	joint
Muscular system	myo-	muscle
	sarco-	flesh
Integument	derm-	skin
Nervous system	neur-	nerve
Endocrine system	aden-	gland
	estr-	steroid
Circulatory system	card-	heart (muscle)
	angi-	vessel
	hema-	blood
	arter-	artery
	ven-	venous
	erythro-	red
Respiratory system	pulmon-	lung
	bronch-	windpipe
Digestive system	gastr-	stomach
	enter-	intestine
	dent-	teeth
	hepat-	liver
Urinary system	ren-	kidney
	neph-	kidney
	ur-	urinary
Immune system	lymph-	lymph
	leuk-	white

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Focusing on the Framework of Anatomy and Physiology
• Chapter 2: Examining Cell Biology Basics
• Chapter 3: Scoping Out the Body’s Structural Layers
• Chapter 4: Getting to the Heart of the Circulatory System
• Chapter 5: Taking a Deep Breath with the Respiratory System
• Chapter 6: Getting on Track with the Digestive System
• Chapter 7: Passing through the Urinary System
• Chapter 8: Making Babies: The Reproductive System
• Chapter 9: Exploring the Nervous, Endocrine, and Immune Systems
• Chapter 10: Ten Phabulous Physiology Phacts
• Index
• About the Authors
• Advertisement Page
• Connect with Dummies
• End User License Agreement