Anatomy and Physiology

Anatomy and Physiology

When learning and studying the human body, you will often hear the words “anatomy” and “physiology”. Although both terms refer back to the same thing, the animal or human body, they both still have different meanings but you will still need to study both to get a better understanding. We can start with the study of anatomy.

When learning about the anatomy of an animal or human, you will learn the structure of the body and how the organs work with one another to keep the body going. Also, anatomy includes the study of cells, tissues, organs, and organ systems. Anatomy comes from Greek: “ana- meaning "up", and tome- meaning "a cutting"” (Nordqvist, 2012). Because anatomy means “a cutting”, labs or studies will perform dissections, a common method of study, on bodies to learn about the organ systems inside the body.

Anatomy is divided into two different types, macroscopic and microscopic anatomy. Macroscopic, also known as gross anatomy, is the study of the structures that can be seen with the naked eye. Gross anatomy divides the human body by head and neck, upper limb, thorax, abdomen, pelvis and perineum, and lower limb. This type of anatomy can be the heart when a coroner is performing a dissection on a body. Microscopic anatomy deals with the structures that are too small to be seen with the naked eye. It is often called the branch of anatomy. Since it cannot be seen with the naked eye, it deals with tissues, cells, or intracellular structures.

In human anatomy, there are eleven body systems. These are the skeletal, muscular, cardiovascular, digestive, endocrine, nervous, respiratory, lymphatic, urinary, reproductive, and integumentary system. When studying the body systems, there are three different methods on how to study them which are palpation, listening, and percussion. In palpation, the student or doctor uses physical contact to study the body. An example would be a doctor using his hand to feel your neck for any lumps. For...