“The lung is a sort of cushion for the heart….“
Niccolo Massa, 1559
Recent events at the Vatican have sparked a lot of interest in thoracic surgery. Many on the internet and within the media, are discussing lobectomy. Which raises the question, do they even know what a lung lobe is? Each of our lungs is made up of separate functional units, each has a bronchus which connects to the airways and its own bundle of blood vessels. The right lung has three lobes (upper, middle and lower), the left lung has two (upper and lower). In fact each lobe can be further divided into functional units called segments, but these have less surgical importance. Relative ignorance of lung anatomy is not new. For centuries anatomists were not convinced the lungs did very much. Collapsed in cadavers they were not very impressive. The Arab physician Ibn al-Nafis championed a possible pulmonary circulation in the 13th Century. It was not until 1693 that the work of William Harvey confirmed the role of both the heart and lungs in respiration. #impressivecushions #letsmakelemonade
