What could be simpler and clearer in the bodyman than mouth? It is not hidden somewhere inside; it is easy to look at it in the mirror and even feel it with your fingers (clean, of course). In principle, there is nothing special to even consider: the oral cavity — it is the cavity. Hole, in other words. Meanwhile, it is a full-fledged and important organ of the digestive system, which is far from being as simple as it may seem, and performing a number of functions. After all, we not only eat and talk with our mouths.
Do you think you have enough fingers tolist all the organs in the mouth? Even if you do not take each tooth individually, the fingers will be more than two hands. Do not believe me? Count yourself: lips, teeth, gums, cheeks, palate, tongue, tongue, salivary glands, tonsils, cavity floor, and pharyngeal isthmus. They did not expect? But this is precisely the structure of the oral cavity, and each of its organs is designed for something, even the tonsils, which in many people are removed when the inflammation is “out of use”. By the way, only palatine tonsils are removed, they are tonsils, and there are also tube, lingual and pharyngeal tonsils, less familiar to the “general public”. All of them are accumulations of lymphoid tissue and perform hematopoietic and protective function.
With lips, cheeks, teeth and gums all the moreor less clear, then other bodies should take a closer look. Take, for example, a language that occupies a central position in every sense of the word in every sense of the word. It is a muscular organ whose fibers are located in different directions, due to which the tongue is so mobile. Performing a variety of movements, it allows you to form numerous sounds, helps to chew and push chewed food down the throat, and on its surface there are many receptors that allow a person to distinguish tastes.
Above the mouth is limited to the sky,separating from her nasal cavity and nasopharynx. On the front two thirds it is solid, has a bone base, and on the third - soft, formed by muscles. In the front part of it you can grope several cross rollers. They are called palatine alveoli and are the rudiments of well-developed organs in animals that help them chew food. The sky ends with a soft tongue overlapping the entrance to the nasopharynx at the time of swallowing.
But below the mouth cavity is not so interesting;Perhaps the only thing that can be distinguished here is a lingual amygdala, located at the very root of the tongue. This is an organ of the immune system, which is involved in the disinfection of food.
Salivary glands deserve special attention.The oral cavity even has several groups of such glands: multiple small - cheek, palatal and lingual, and paired large - parotid, submandibular and sublingual. Their purpose is clear from the name: they produce a special secret - saliva. Its quantity and composition strongly depends on the properties of the food consumed, and you yourself know that from a lemon, for example, it “drives saliva”. The sublingual and submandibular glands "produce" more dense saliva, and the largest glands - the parotid - more liquid. In total, an adult gland produces up to two liters of saliva per day, and this happens reflexively, without our participation and desire. Generally salivation is an unconditional reflex, but sometimes it can be conditional, as a response to various olfactory, visual and other stimuli. When we say at the sight of an appetizing food, "drooling" flows - this is not just a figure of speech, but just an illustration of the conditioned reflex of salivation.
What is saliva for?It contains enzymes that are used to pre-process food that enters the body. Oral enzymes break down carbohydrates to glucose, and its bactericidal substance, lysozyme, disinfects food.
