It has been a couple of years since I featured the heart in its own series although I have included in related posts. We tend to think of the heart from an emotional perspective but in reality it is a pump that has a number of moving parts that is vital to our survival. Since the 1960s, the heart is one of the organs that can be replaced with a transplanted organ, but there are far more patients waiting for a new heart than there are donors.

This means that we need to take care of the one we have. However, like all our major organs it is hidden from view and we really only pay it the attention it deserves when something is wrong with it. Over the next few days I am going to look at the heart as an organ and the basics of how it functions…