Interesting Medical Facts

Interesting Medical Facts

Marcus Bracken, Staff Editor

At some point in life, everyone has experienced a time when your body has done or “felt” something out of the normal. The human body is capable of doing things many people may not know about, some of those things being for the best.

I don’t normally eat large meals, but when I do, I often feel the need to wrap myself in a blanket after. I learned from a coworker that my body heat and energy is being used to help digest and metabolize the food I had just eaten, rather than maintaining a normal body temperature. It’s great that the body does this because it helps prevent indigestion which can cause nausea and vomiting.

Although it may seem inappropriate at times, when releasing burps or farts, it helps prevent indigestion and abdominal pain. Even though having indigestion is a valid excuse to pass gas, please be aware of the people around you and your surroundings.

Now, thanks to the Clear Springs anatomy teacher, Mrs. Lowman, she has some insight on more medical facts. With the book “The Body” by Bill Bryson.

According to the book, penicillin has descended from a cantaloupe. After 2 years of testing random samples of mold and soil, lab assistant Mary Hunt had bought a cantaloupe from a local grocery store. The cantaloupe she had had a golden mold that was more potent than any samples they had tested.

Still coming from “The Body”, the brain is compared to ‘a dungeoned prisoner’. It’s never seen the light of day and has no feelings whatsoever. The only concept the brain has of the world are electrical pulses that come in a morse code-like pattern. Even though your brain makes up who you are and sees the world, its really just there for plumbing and scaffolding.

These parts of the book are just a few pages of a 383-page book. There’s still a lot more to talk about in the book but that’s really for another time.