Health and Wellness Concepts

The cells are life building blocks. Just as bridges, houses and machines are all made up off small, simple parts, so all living things-from the one celled amoeba to the human body-are made up off cells.

When a larger number of the same kind of cells are found together, they are said to form tissue. In the body there are six types of tissue.

The first type is covering one. Examples of this are the skin and the covering of the inside of the mouth, and the digestive organs.

The second kind is connective tissue. It binds muscles together, forms the capsules around joints, anchor organs in place, and forms a loose supporting network under the skin.

Muscle tissue is the third, nervous tissue the fourth and glandular tissue the fifth.

Nervous tissue is different from all the others because it is the only kind of tissue that cannot heal itself by growing new nerve cells.

Just as cells form tissues, tissues form organs and systems and together form the human body.

The blood is the sixth kind of the tissue.

Blood must be considered from a tissue, with the liquid part of the blood, the plasma, serving as a matrix or the formed elements or cells scattered in it.

Red blood cells are manufactured in the marrow of the bones. Many white cells originate in the lymph nodes.

For many years, man looked for a way to replace lost blood within bloods of a healthy person. Everyone who tried failed until scientists found that there were different types of blood.

Today blood can be given from one person to another by transfusion, if both have the same type of blood, or if their body types are compatible.

If two different types of blood are mixed, the red blood cells clump together with dangerous results. To test whether two bloods are of the same type, the serum of one blood is added to cells of the other. If the red cells do not form clumps then the two bodies are the same type or compatible.