Naked Science Forum

On the Lighter Side => Famous Scientists, Doctors and Inventors => Topic started by: artistic on 12/08/2006 16:21:41

Title: The Blood
Post by: artistic on 12/08/2006 16:21:41

How did scientist know that our digested food, plasma etc are transported through our blood?

Title: Re: The Blood
Post by: daveshorts on 12/08/2006 16:56:15

I guess by first working out where the blood is going, then looking at what is in it on it's travels - if there is very little glucose/lipids in it on the way to the stomach but loads on the way out that indicates it has picked some food up, if there is loads of glucose etc going out to a muscle but very little coming back it must have been dropped off there.

If you were wanting to make absolutely sure you could label some glucose with radioactive oxygen for example, put it in the stomach and then by looking for the radioactivity you could find exactly where it was going.

btw Plasma just the name for part of the blood - the non cells bit

Title: Re: The Blood
Post by: Mjhavok on 14/08/2006 00:32:11

Cutting open and examining people. Hopefully after they are dead.



Steven
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In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Title: Re: The Blood
Post by: another_someone on 14/08/2006 01:16:27

I think it does not take too much imagination to hypothesise that something must carry food from the gut to the peripheries of the body, and maritime transport was well known throughout history, so thinking of the blood, the most ubiquitous fluid in the body,  as a means of transport would seem like logical conclusion to come to.  The fact that blood was known to be pumped around the body (even if the circulatory nature of the flow was not understood – it was well known that stopping the heart would stop the flow of blood – people, or animals, don't bleed much after their heart stops, so the connection was fairly evident).

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George