Phone Numbers
Directory assistance
(203) 688-4242
Patient information
(203) 688-4177
Adult emergency
(203) 688-2222
Children's emergency
(203) 688-3333
Admitting
(203) 688-2221
Children's admitting
(203) 688-3331
Psychiatric admitting
(203) 688-9907
How the heart works
It's small, a little larger than a clenched fist. Relatively simple in function, your heart's primary purpose is to pump...24 hours a day, 70 to 80 times a minute. With each beat, the heart pumps blood that delivers life-sustaining oxygen and nutrients to 300 trillion cells. Each day the average heart "beats" (or expands and contracts) 100,000 times and pumps about 2,000 gallons of blood. In a 70-year lifetime, an average human heart beats more than 2.5 billion times, pumping approximately 1 million barrels of blood.
The circulatory system is a network of flexible tubes through which blood flows as it carries oxygen and nutrients to all parts of the body. It includes the heart, lungs, arteries, arterioles (small arteries) and capillaries (minute blood vessels). It also includes venules (small veins) and veins, the blood vessels through which blood flows as it returns to the heart. If all these vessels were laid end-to-end, they would extend for about 60,000 miles--far enough to encircle the earth more than twice.
To learn more about how the heart accomplishes all this, you might want to explore the following web sites.
The Heart: An Online Exploration
| The web sites listed above are linked for the convenience of users. They are not managed by Yale-New Haven Hospital. In determining links which should be offered on our site, we make every effort to recommend sites of high quality. However, please note Yale-New Haven Hospital does not continuously review, control or take responsibility for the content of these sites. If you are disappointed in the quality of a site we have listed, please let us know. |
Next page: Are you at risk for heart disease?
Medical illustrations by Patrick J. Lynch, Yale Center for Advanced Instructional Media. Copyright 2007, Yale University.
Last revised: May 23, 2007 (dh)
