How many hearts does an octopus have? Octopus structure. A photo. People with two hearts - a phenomenon or a new race Most hearts
The internal organs of a glass frog, including its heart
Of course, the human heart is an amazing miracle, thanks to which we live, it is a vessel of the soul, and so on. However, is it capable of self-healing? Does it pump exceptionally pure blood? Is it possible to freeze it and then bring it back to life?
The hearts of some animal species are capable of this and more. We have researched animal world, ranging from the depths of the ocean to the summit of the Himalayas, for heart wonders, and here's what we've been able to discover.
Insects
viscera earthworm, including his five pseudo-hearts
Earthworm
Depending on which point of view you hold, earthworms either have five "hearts" or no heart at all. Although they do not have the usual muscular organ with multiple chambers, they do have five special blood vessels called "aortic arches". Contracting, the aortic arches pump blood throughout the body of the worm. So what if you accidentally hurt your heart earthworm, don't worry - he has four more pieces exactly the same.
Cockroach
The human heart consists of four chambers, each of which performs a specific function - if something happens to one of them, something irreparable will happen. In turn, the heart of a cockroach has twelve to thirteen chambers, which are arranged in a row and are set in motion. separate group muscles. This means that if one camera stops functioning, nothing will happen to the cockroach.
hoverfly
hoverfly
Hoverfly flies love to hover in the air above the flowers, collecting precious pollen. Helping them do this is what is essentially the heart that pumps blood to the head and chest where they are oral apparatus and muscles responsible for flapping wings.
Fish and their neighbors
Danio rerio
This little beautiful fish has the heart of a real superhero. In 2002, scientists found that if up to 20% of the lower ventricle was removed from the zebrafish, the fish would be able to restore the lost tissue within two months. This is due to specialized muscle cells that are capable of not only regenerating, but also stimulating the growth of new blood vessels. By studying the self-healing hearts of zebrafish, scientists hope to apply what they have learned to human organs.
spiky-nosed whiteblood
spiky-nosed whiteblood
The spiky whitefish lives in the Southern Ocean at a depth of one kilometer. How does she manage to deal with the cold? Thanks in part to her heart, which is much larger and about five times stronger than a normal heart. aquarium fish. The blood of the spiky whitefish also lacks hemoglobin, the red protein responsible for binding oxygen. Instead, thanks to low temperatures, oxygen dissolves directly in the plasma of the spiky whitefish, which causes the transparency of its blood.
Anatomy of a cuttlefish
Cuttlefish
Like all cephalopods, the cuttlefish has three hearts - one heart each for a pair of gills and one heart for the rest of the body. Research results show that cuttlefish that live in cold waters have larger hearts than those that live in warm waters; this is due to an increase in aerobic capacity. In addition, their blood contains hemocyanin (instead of hemoglobin), which gives it a blue color. Cuttlefish are true aristocrats.
Birds
Hummingbird captured in flight
You have probably heard that hummingbirds make 15 flaps of their wings in one second - and all thanks to the possession of a unique heart, which contracts up to 21 times per second and provides fast delivery of oxygen to muscle mitochondria.
mountain goose
Migration is not an easy process for all birds, but mountain geese are the least fortunate in this regard: their route runs right over the Himalayas. These birds regularly fly over mountain passes at an altitude of 6000 meters above sea level - and all thanks to the fact that they have an unusual strong heart associated with the muscles that are involved in flight, a set of additional capillaries.
emperor penguins
Emperor penguins are famous for their soft hearts. Most your couple time emperor penguins spend taking care of each other and their offspring. Less well known, but very important, is the fact that emperor penguin hearts work extremely slowly, especially during immersion in water: they make about 15 contractions per minute, cutting off the blood supply to all (except vital) organs and providing the body with just that much oxygen. required for deep sea hunting.
Reptiles and amphibians
forest frog
The hearts of many animals, from bears to marmots, slow down when they hibernate, but as far as we know, wood frogs may stop beating altogether during this period. In winter, these frogs essentially turn into "icicles": thanks to a special solution in their cells, they can suspend metabolic activity and allow most of the water in their body to solidify without any consequences. Their hearts take it for granted; they stop beating when the world freezes, and resume activity when it warms up.
glass frog
All frogs have a three-chambered heart with two atria that receive blood from other parts of the body and one ventricle that shunts it back. Glass frogs are unique in that you can observe this whole process with your own eyes - their translucent skin on the belly allows a person to see the work of the heart and blood vessels inside these amphibians.
The python waits for its prey
Python
After a python has a good "lunch", its heart increases in size by 40 percent due to fatty acids that come with food. (This speeds up digestion, a process that can take up to several days for pythons.)
mammals
A heart blue whale which is kept in the Royal Ontario Museum
Blue whale
Popular legend has it that a blue whale's heart is the size of a car, and a human can easily crawl through its aorta. This is not entirely true. According to Jacqueline Miller, the heart of a blue whale is the size of "a small golf cart or a circus electric car with a bumper," and only one human head will fit in its aorta.
Giraffe
The giraffe's heart has to fight against the pressure of gravity every day to deliver blood to the head of this long-necked animal. He manages to do this thanks to very thick and strong walls and blood vessels that expand and contract at a rapid pace. As the giraffe's neck lengthens, the blood vessels also undergo changes, becoming thicker.
Cheetah
The heart of a cheetah at rest beats about 120 beats per minute - about the same as the heart of a person who is jogging. While the maximum human heart rate is approximately 220 beats per minute - and it takes some time to reach it, the cheetah's "heart rocket" is capable of reaching a frequency of up to 250 beats per minute in just a few seconds. This change is so intense that it allows the cheetah to run at top speed for only about 20 seconds, after which the predator's organs begin to overheat and become damaged.
Octopuses are cousins to oysters. Like all mollusks, their body is soft, boneless. But the shell, or rather its underdeveloped remnant (two cartilaginous sticks), they wear not on the back, but under the skin of the back.
Octopuses are not simple mollusks, but cephalopods. On their heads, tentacles-arms grow, which are also called legs, because animals walk on them along the bottom, as if on stilts.
Squids and cuttlefish are also cephalopods. They differ from octopuses only in appearance. Squids and cuttlefish have not eight, but ten tentacles and a body with fins (ordinary octopuses do not have fins). The body of a cuttlefish is flat, like a cake; in squid it is cone-shaped, like a pin. At the narrow end of the "skittles" (where the tail should have been!) diamond-shaped fins stick out to the sides.
The cuttlefish shell is a calcareous plate, the squid has a chitinous feather, similar to the Roman gladius sword. Gladius is also called the underdeveloped squid shell.
tentacles cephalopods corolla surround the mouth. Suckers sit on tentacles in two rows or in one, less often in four. At the base of the tentacle, the suckers are smaller, in the middle they are the largest, and at the ends they are very tiny.
The mouth of the cephalopod is small, the pharynx is muscular, and in the pharynx there is a horny beak, black (in the squid it is brown) and curved, like a parrot. A thin esophagus extends from the pharynx to the stomach. Along the way, like a dart, it pierces through the brain. After all, octopuses also have a brain - and quite large: it has fourteen lobes. The octopus brain is covered with a rudimentary cortex of the smallest gray cells - a control room for memory, and on top it is also protected by a cartilaginous skull. Brain cells from all sides tightly fit the esophagus. Therefore, octopuses (squids and cuttlefish too), despite their very predatory appetites, cannot swallow prey larger than a forest ant.
But nature endowed them with a grater, with which they prepare mashed crabs and fish. The fleshy tongue of cephalopods is covered with a hemispherical horny sheath. The cover is seated with the smallest teeth. The cloves grind food, turning it into gruel. Food is moistened in the mouth with saliva and enters the stomach, then into the caecum - and this is essentially a second stomach.
There is a liver and a pancreas. The digestive juices that they secrete are very active - they quickly digest food in four hours. In other cold-blooded animals, digestion is delayed for many hours, in flounder, for example, for 40-60 hours.
But here's the most amazing thing: cephalopods have not one, but three hearts: one drives blood through the body, and the other two push it through the gills. The main heart beats 30-36 times per minute.
They also have unusual blood - blue! Dark blue when oxygenated and pale in veins.
The color of the blood of animals depends on the metals that are part of the blood cells (erythrocytes) or substances dissolved in the plasma.
In all vertebrates, as well as in the earthworm, leeches, houseflies and some mollusks, iron oxide is found in a complex combination with blood hemoglobin. Therefore their blood is red" In the blood of many sea worms, instead of hemoglobin, contains a similar substance - chlorocruorin. Ferrous iron was found in its composition, and therefore the color of the blood of these worms is green.
And scorpions, spiders, crayfish and our friends, octopuses and cuttlefish, the blood is blue. Instead of hemoglobin, it contains hemocyanin, with copper as the metal. Copper also gives their blood a bluish color.
With metals, or rather with the substances that they are part of, oxygen is combined in the lungs or gills, which is then delivered to the tissues through the blood vessels.
The blood of cephalopods is distinguished by two more striking properties: a record protein content in the animal world (up to 10%) and a salt concentration that is common for sea water. The last circumstance has a great evolutionary meaning. To understand it, let's make a small digression, get acquainted in the break between stories about octopuses with a creature close to the progenitors of all life on Earth, and trace for more simple example how blood originated and how it developed.
Blood Pumping Mechanisms
Before talking about breathing itself, I would like to touch on the topic of blood circulation in the human body. Some people, knowing our anatomy and physiology, are convinced that the heart pumps the blood in the body. This is a deep delusion. If you connect a mechanical heart, an apparatus, to a corpse, it will not pump blood.
Turns out, a person has not one but three hearts . When we worked in Kyiv, I gave several lectures at a military institute that studies the heart. A secret military institute is studying the heart - like this interesting activity. And when I gave them a lecture, they came to the conclusion that it was not clear what they had been doing before.
It is believed that first heart in humans (meaning the mechanism of pumping blood) - these are all our cells that make up the cell mass, which tends to constantly move from a state of contraction to a state of relaxation and vice versa. That is, there is a general pulsation in the body. Moreover, equipment has been developed that is designed to analyze this very pulsation in the legs, in the trunk, etc. When the pulsation in the legs is disturbed, thrombophlebitis is provided to you, thanks to the stagnant process. It should be noted that all existing nutritional supplements are designed specifically to activate the pulsation of each cell. The biggest problem is that under the influence external environment our cellular level becomes more and more passive every year of life. We vitally need inner activation . When we met with Muldashev (he came to us, and his deputy was trained in our method), it turned out that they had a problem: they are able to grow eyeballs, various other parts for cyborgs, but they don’t know how to make them work. They can grow, but they can’t make the organ function by itself. The starter is missing. It turns out that the problem lies in the fact that each cell must have a starter - an internal pulsation. One of the most important exercises that many systems use and which leads to a general activation of the body's pulsation is auto-training based on sensations of heaviness-lightness. As well as various complications - when you give the installation that the leg or toe has become cold or hot, and vice versa. At the same time, there is a buildup, which powerfully affects the blood circulation of our organs. Unfortunately, almost no one uses such auto-training (especially postoperatively). And this is the basis of Tibetan, Oriental medicine - mental activation of blood circulation with such a pulsation. So here it is the first heart is our cell mass, which determines the energy of blood circulation.
Second heart – this is the bag in which our internal organs and which is in constant dynamics due to diaphragmatic breathing. At the same time, there is a constant massage of the internal organs. One of the most important exercises of various schools, a kind of test - you lie down, and I stand on your stomach, and you breathe. If you can't breathe, then it's time to die. This is an example of a special technology for the development of diaphragmatic breathing in martial arts. We are not talking about martial arts here, we are ordinary normal people, but we simply need a certain development of diaphragmatic breathing. In those who have certain problems with the shape of the abdomen, especially in women after childbirth, etc., diaphragmatic breathing is disturbed, and immediately powerful impact on the kidneys, on the genitals, on the venous system of the legs, etc. I will talk about this at another lecture (on the setting and movement of arms, legs, etc., on the use of our muscle mass in the development of direct and reverse biological connections). Now I'm talking about breathing. I want to emphasize that our breathing is primarily related to our blood circulation .
third heart This is our heart itself. The heart is a tuning fork that adjusts the diaphragmatic rhythm and creates a certain rhythm of the work of our body, the entire cell mass, the cellular level. This is a very delicate mechanism. By the way, I want to note right away that if someone has dominated by brain functions, brain activity, then he suppresses his heart, which results in one type of heart disease. If the genitourinary system dominates, suppressing the heart, this is another type of pathology. In both cases, the person will have a sick heart, but the heart itself has absolutely nothing to do with it. It does not act on itself - either the head or the genitourinary system acts on it. Accordingly, it is necessary to deal with either the head or the genitourinary system. And we can treat the heart all our lives. So, when a person knows how to breathe correctly, he creates some dynamics in the whole body, fluctuations in cell mass, and such a person has normal blood circulation. I can visually demonstrate how, with a completely relaxed arm, my veins swell. Due to the impact on the internal organs, I will make a counterflow of blood flow through the veins, and they will expand enormously before your eyes. At the same time, my blood vessels are like those of a baby. I do not specifically practice Hatha yoga or other systems, I only use the so-called yoga Everyday life - a certain minimum of exercise that is needed to maintain homeostasis (balance) in the body . Every full-fledged person needs to have a minimum set of knowledge about full breathing. Full-fledged people (full-fledged, like some animals) in our society are only a few percent, from my point of view. And it is very sad that in kindergartens and schools underdeveloped, excuse me, "guts" are being formed.
There is a certain age schedule for the development of our mass, our organs, systems, therefore if some things are not given to the child in time, then pathology is eventually laid . So I once showed my son that you have to sit in the lotus position, and he sits in the lotus position. He doesn't care, even if it's like that. That is, I made a certain bookmark, and his joints received an impetus to normal development in time. If you start developing an adult in this way, it can even be dangerous. Sometimes you can’t even do this, because in a person, let’s say, the joints begin to develop well, but the vessels will not develop at the same time - as a result, you can get ruptures, various injuries and other very sad consequences. Since I touched on this conversation, I will immediately give one important picture associated with circulation.
It is believed that if people find ways to treat all their diseases, then the very last problem that remains will be associated with microcapillaries, through which arterial blood passes into venous (Fig. 1). This place of transition is the most weakness in the human body. For example, people with diabetes do not die from diabetes but because the microcapillaries are clogged. If the lower part dominates in a person, then the capillaries suffer mainly in the legs, if the upper part of the blood flow dominates, then the eyes suffer, etc., up to the brain.
I'll give you an example. There was a very bright case in Kyiv. In our group, 60 doctors were trained at the first stage. We prepared them special program a whole year. The program was supervised by Lyudmila Nikolaevna Kuchma, wife of the president. So, one of our colleagues, a doctor, a very powerful athlete, could freely do push-ups on his fists, well, 250 times, for example. Such an ace athlete. He came from another city, settled in Kyiv, there was a lot of time, and he worked out pumping. We have such an exercise when at a distance of 5-7 meters we do energy pumping. So he worked for 2-3 hours with someone in a pair of this pumping. And then he already comes and says: "Vyacheslav Mikhailovich, I have some kind of tragedy." What's happened? And all around his body capillaries were torn, there was a hemorrhage. "What's the matter? I’m so strong, healthy, the strongest, the very best…” I told him: “And you are the weakest in fact.” How can it be? And the point is that When athletes do intensive physical exercises, they turn these capillaries, which I spoke about, due to stress, from elastic to brittle, rigid. And when from within, due to the technology of “breathing with bones”, a friend began to activate blood circulation, the capillaries, especially on the surface, began to burst. The doctor was simply horrified, and he had to drastically reduce classes.
For us, people who exercise intensively, without knowing the bases of drip systems, are, in fact, sorry, freaks. All our sports “stars” are disabled. Why? Illiterate development. Unfortunately, true professionals and specialists do not participate in Olympic Games, do not demonstrate their professionalism. When we examined the Spartak team (Zavarzin's team), it turned out that all of them were semi-disabled by diagnostics. And this is our football elite. Footballers work hard. Oriental wisdom forms a culture of life, a culture of sports, a culture of martial arts, but here they are squeezing something out of a person. Therefore our talking about breathing technology is aimed at joining the culture of human development . Everyone understands perfectly well that in our life breathing occupies one of the most important places. This was the introductory part.
Breathing technologies in the Archangel Michael system
Now I will talk about respiratory systems: Full breath, Breath of bones, Breath of balls, Breath of thought, Breath of space. All of them belong to the system of the Archangel Michael (Fig. 2). 
The Archangel Michael system is presented a seven-pointed star, at the ends of which: the Standing column system, the Fast Wind system, the Five Beasts system, the Drunkard system, the Sleeping God system, the Dragon system and the Void Presence system. This is the "Star of the Mage" or the basis of the "Dragon" system. T The Bone Breathing technology is related to the Standing Pillar system. Balloon Breathing (inner breathing) technology belongs to the Rapid Wind system, Full Breath technology to the Five Beasts system, Thought Breathing technology to the Drunkard system, and Space Breathing technology to the Sleeping God.
The human body never ceases to amaze doctors and scientists with its features. One such phenomenon is people with two hearts. Moreover, some of them lived for many years and did not suspect their uniqueness.
They had excellent health, which allowed them not to go to the doctors. And the presence of a second heart made the body more resilient and made it easier to cope with physical activity.
From the history
In 1844, Dorge Lippert was born in Germany, who had three legs. He earned his living in the circus of the largest American hoaxer Phineas Taylor Barnum, in which unusual people were shown.
Fact: "The Russian boy Fedor Evtikhiev, who was born with a hairy face, also performed in this circus."
After Lippert's death in 1906, an autopsy revealed that he had two hearts in his chest. At the same time, during his lifetime, neither he nor those around him knew about it.
In 1905, an advertisement appeared in American newspapers for a 35-year-old carpenter named Durr, in which he was ready to hang his body with two hearts to anyone who would pay a large amount of money. Several experts examined the carpenter and came to the unanimous conclusion: the carpenter really has two hearts, while he is completely healthy. A group of doctors offered him $10,000 for an operation to remove one of the hearts while alive, but Durr declined due to fears of complications from the operation.
In 1911, a reference book on surgery was published in Yekaterinburg, which contained information about the rural paramedic Vladimir Ognivtsev, who also had two hearts. At the same time, the reference book even provided a diagram of the movement of blood in his body.
As medical technology advances
With the development of medical technology, evidence of people with two hearts began to be supported by authoritative examinations using the most accurate instruments.
In 1967, in the city of Zharov, which is located near Belgrade in Yugoslavia, during a medical examination at school, a second heart was found in the boy Ramo Osmani, which was on the right and had the shape of a mirror image of the main organ. During the x-ray examination, it was revealed that both hearts are smaller than normal for this age, but their clear joint work ensures stable good blood circulation. At the same time, the student had a healthier and stronger appearance than his peers.
Ramo Osmani constantly undergoes medical examinations throughout his life. However, with the exception of this phenomenon, his body does not differ too much from others. He is more enduring than other people, but with the onset of fatigue, he needs a longer rest.
In 2004, a second heart was found in a one-year-old boy from Georgia, with one circulatory organ located in chest, and the second in abdominal cavity. A few years later, a second heart was found in a 50-year-old man from Ukraine.
In 2004, in a number of Russian media A note was published about Zyaudin Yandiev from the village of Inarki in the Malgobek district of Ingushetia, who had two hearts at the age of 47. The man rarely went to the doctors, although he underwent a medical examination in the army. During examinations, doctors habitually applied a stethoscope to the left side of the chest - and determined the parameters of the circulatory organ, while not suspecting that it was not the only one. At the end of 1999, due to blood poisoning, Zyaudin ended up in a hospital in the city of Nalchik, where, during a cardiogram, the doctor noticed that one of the electrodes had sharply moved to the right, and found two hearts in the patient.
After recovery, Zyaudin underwent a full examination, as a result of which no other pathologies were identified. An entry was made in his medical record: "Two hearts were found in the patient Yandiev, born in 1956 - on the right and on the left."
In 2004, Zyaudin was taken to the hospital with a heart attack in two hearts. The man recovered quite quickly, but the doctors noted that a simultaneous heart attack confirms that two hearts in the body behave as one and form a single system.
Stopping two hearts
In 2010, an elderly man was found on the street in Verona, unconscious, with difficulty breathing and low blood pressure. He was taken to the department emergency care, where doctors made an assumption about a heart attack and carried out drug therapy. The name of the man on medical ethics was not disclosed.
During the examination, the man was found to have two hearts. Because of the medication chosen by medical error, both hearts stopped. With the help of a defibrillator, the doctors managed to beat them again, and after recovery, the patient left the clinic.
It turned out that he was not born with two hearts - the second organ was donated and transplanted several years ago. The transplanted heart not only took root, but caused stable operation of the first circulatory organ, the condition of which improved dramatically. Due to the introduction of incorrect medicinal product there was a stoppage of the main heart, followed by a failure in the work of the donor.
Second heart transplant operations
In London in 1996, the famous heart surgeon Magdi Yacoub performed a donor heart transplant operation on two-year-old Hannah Clark. The girl's own heart was twice the size of normal and could not withstand the load. The surgeon left his native heart in place and transplanted the donor organ into right side chest.
The girl lived with two hearts for 10 years. However, in 2006, a rejection reaction began in her body (precisely because of the possibility of developing such a situation, the doctor left the girl’s native heart).
By this time, Magdy Jacob had already retired and did not perform operations, but only consulted surgeons. The doctors suggested either suppressing the rejection reaction or starting the girl's own heart. The results of the operation exceeded all expectations, and instead of the planned several months, Hanna spent only 5 days in the clinic.
Fact:“During 10 years of functioning of the donor organ, the girl’s native heart recovered, and working in tandem with the donor one, it gradually became the same in all respects.”
After the removal of the donor organ, Hanna quickly recovered and even actively went in for sports.
In March 2009, in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo, surgeon Alfredo Fiorelli performed a donor heart transplant on a 53-year-old patient. The patient's native organ was also left in place, and both hearts were connected by vessels. The patient tolerated the operation well, while the doctors noted that the worn-out native heart began to work much better than before.
Brothers with two hearts
About one more amazing story became known from the pages of the Irkutsk newspaper, on which Elvira Chernikova was searching for her cousin. Her aunt Valentina Dedyukhina gave birth to a boy in 1937. During the examination, the doctor dissuaded the woman from giving up the child, since he had two hearts and with such a pathology the boy simply would not survive. Valentina signed the refusal, but after a few months she regretted her decision and began searching for her son. It turned out that the boy disappeared with the same gynecologist who allegedly adopted him. The time was difficult at that time and the woman who abandoned the child did not apply to law enforcement agencies.
A few years later, Valentina Dedyukhina's sister also gave birth to a boy with two hearts! The man lived to old age, had good health and both hearts worked properly. Now Elvira was trying to find the same cousin who disappeared in 1937.
Based on this case, it can be assumed that this phenomenon may have a genetic connection - after all, the birth of people with two hearts happened to sisters.
The birth of a new race
Anthropologist at Rutgers University in the United States, Suzanne Kachel, has been studying people with two hearts for a number of years. According to her, the system of one heart and two lungs originated about 300 million years ago, when the migration of animals from water to land began. Initially, a human embryo in the womb has two two-chambered hearts, which then merge into one four-chambered heart. According to Suzanne, the presence of two hearts in a formed person is a manifestation of gene memory when the process of two paired rudiments is disrupted for some reason and each of them develops into an independent heart. And if the work of both circulatory organs is well-coordinated, a person lives a normal healthy life.
Fact:“Scientists have noticed that the number of people with two hearts is gradually increasing every year.”
One to help the other
In March 2009, it became known about the unique surgical operation held at the Heart Institute in Sao Paulo (Brazil).
A fifty-three-year-old patient, whose heart was already refusing to pump blood, was transplanted into the right side of the chest with a donor heart, leaving his own in the same place. "New" heart tied blood vessels with "old".
It was reported that the operation lasted 12 hours and that the patient's condition was stable. However, doctors expressed concern that the patient's chances of survival were 50%. "The next 72 hours will be decisive," said surgeon Alfredo Fiorelli, who performed the transplant. And he added that in the current situation, a traditional transplant would not be recommended, so the only alternative is to “implant” a second heart and keep the patient in such an artificially created state for about two months. There is hope that the donor heart will still take over the main functions of its own, which will beat more and more slowly ...
There were many questions, however. If everything goes according to plan, will the “main” heart need to be removed later? And where does such confidence come from that it will beat more and more slowly? Or maybe, over time, it will, on the contrary, begin to work normally?
My heart is rested and...
It turns out that back in 1996 in London, the famous cardiac surgeon Magdi Yakub transplanted a donor heart to a two-year-old girl Hannah Clark, leaving her own in place. At that time, due to cardiomyopathy, it was already twice the usual size, and doctors predicted that in a maximum of a year the heart would not withstand the load. After the operation, the girl had to take medication to suppress the rejection of the donor heart and everything seemed to be going well with Hannah. So 10 years have passed.
However, in 2006, she suddenly began this same rejection reaction. The donor heart had to be urgently removed and tried to connect his own. Surgeons have never done anything like this before. They were advised by the same Magdy Yakub, already retired. And then the surprises began!
Instead of 8 hours, the operation took 4; instead of several months, Hanna spent only 5 days in the intensive care unit. She quickly recovered and soon even began to dream of some kind of sports competition. It turns out that the girl’s own heart has had a good rest over the years, gained strength and “learned” to work normally. The donor "double" became simply superfluous, so the body began to reject it!
Two in one
But it happens that a person is born with two hearts. Back in 1905, the thirty-five-year-old American carpenter A. Durr placed an advertisement in one of the newspapers that he was ready to bequeath his body and his two hearts to someone who would immediately pay him good money. Durr was a big man, which experts confirmed, and one even offered $10,000 for the right to extract one of the two hearts while alive. But the carpenter refused, fearing that he would not have time to enjoy this money if something went wrong.
In Russia, too, they have known about this phenomenon for a long time. In 1911, a reference book on surgery was published in Yekaterinburg, in which there is a diagram with the caption: “The Ognivtsev phenomenon. A man with two hearts." But who is he, this Vladimir Ognivtsev? So, a rural paramedic, whose fate is not even really known.
But in January 2004 Russian newspapers told about a resident of Ingushetia from the village of Inarki, Malgobek district. Until the age of forty-seven, Zyaudin Yandiev did not even think that he had two hearts. And although some doctor told him this as a child, Zyaudin soon forgot about the second heart. He served in the army, worked, visited doctors more than once, but no one noticed an amazing anomaly, out of habit applying a stethoscope to the left side of his chest. And only in 2003, when he ended up in a hospital with blood poisoning, “the cardiologist literally jumped in surprise when, during a cardiogram, one of the electrodes abruptly moved to the right side and froze,” recalls Z. Yandiev. Here he was examined in full!
One is good, but two is better!
Note that in most cases these phenomenal people do not even know for years that they have two hearts. Why? Because they don’t go to doctors - good health. Even if the second heart is not in place. So, in July 2004, doctors in Tbilisi examined a one-year-old baby, Goga Diasamidze from Batumi: he had one heart in his chest, and the second in his abdomen. But even in this case, the body has adapted!
There is also a case in Ukraine, when a “tumor” was found in a fifty-year-old man, which actually turned out to be a second heart! This man had never gone to the doctors before - everything was in order with his health.
In general, it seems that the body "does not mind" two hearts! Moreover, a child with a "spare" heart grows more resilient and strong, it is easier to cope with physical stress (and there is something for biologists, geneticists, and futurologists to think about).
But, in this case, why didn’t nature take care of duplicating this most important organ in the course of evolution for all of us? After all, we have two lungs, kidneys or eyes! And the heart is one. And the power of this "pump" is not so great. He is able to push blood into all vessels down to the smallest capillaries, of which we have 100-160 billion in the body, but it is difficult for him to deliver venous blood back. But it turns out that numerous “mini-hearts” scattered throughout our body help the heart to push the blood. These are muscles.
According to Nikolai Arinchin, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of Belarus, we have 1008 such "hearts" (according to the number of skeletal muscles). And if the muscles become decrepit, the heart becomes very hard. Moral: if you want to live - help your heart, train all your muscles!
Genes and chromosomes?
Recently, Elvira Chernikova began to look for her cousin. Her aunt Valentina Dedyukhina once had a son weighing 4.5 kg in Irkutsk - a healthy and strong baby. The gynecologist who delivered the baby said, however, that the child was not viable because he had two hearts and persuaded the woman to write a refusal. After that, both the child and that gynecologist (childless, by the way) disappeared from the hospital - maybe the doctor adopted the baby. And after some time, my sister Dedyukhina also had a son with two hearts. “Now he is an adult,” says Elvira, “his heart works like clockwork, the rhythm is clear and strong. So we decided to look: maybe our cousin will be found somewhere in Irkutsk?
This is what happens? "Family" phenomenon? Maybe some recessive (ancient) gene worked for both sisters? Maybe once all our ancestors had two hearts? It is no coincidence that a human embryo also has two hearts at first, but then they are combined into one (the eyes, by the way, are the opposite: at first the embryo has one eye, then it is divided into two).
Susana Kachel, an anthropologist at Rutgers University, argues that the one-heart, two-lung system began about 300 million years ago, when aquatic radishes first began to crawl onto land (by the way, the octopus still has three hearts). And, perhaps, it is no coincidence that the human embryo at first resembles a fish, an amphibian, and only much later - a mammal, which in the course of evolution replaced each other until they turned into Homo sapiens? And our genetic memory is still no, no, and it will give out two hearts - so to speak, "in the old fashioned way"!