- Quick facts about heart anatomy and physiology.

Quick facts about heart anatomy and physiology.

• Your heart is located between your lungs in the middle of your chest, immediately behind and slightly to the left of your sternum.
• In this location, it is protected by the sternum  in front, the spinal column in back, and the ribs and lungs on the sides.
•  It weighs approximately 250 to 300 grams (9 to 11 oz) in females and 300 to 350 grams (11 to 12 oz) in males.(1)
• The heart is about the size of a human fist.
• The pericardium is a double-walled sac containing the heart and the roots of the great vessels. Pericardium is a tough double layered membrane which covers the heart. The space between the two layers of it is filled with a pericardium fluid which protects the heart from any kind of external trauma..the outermost fibrous pericardium and the inner serous pericardium.
• The heart actually pumps blood through two very distinct circulatory systems  ... Systemic system and Pulmonary system..
• The systemic system is the system in which fresh oxygenated blood pumps out through the arteries and in which deoxygenated blood returns to the heart through the veins.
• The pulmonary system is the system  in which Deoxygenated blood is pumped out of the heart through the pulmonary arteries into the lungs, and recharged oxygenated blood returns to the heart through the pulmonary veins. It is this recharged oxygenated blood that gets pumped out through the systemic circulatory system..
• The only veins which carry oxygenated blood are the 4 pulmonary veins.
• The only artery which carry deoxygenated blood is the pulmonary artery.

*References:- 

(1)Kumar, Abbas, Fausto: Robbins and Cotran Pathologic Basis of Disease, 7th Ed. p. 556