Oral cavity - not so simple as it seems

What can be simpler and more understandable in the human body than the mouth? It is not hidden somewhere inside, it is easy to see in the mirror and even touch with your fingers (of course, clean). In principle, even there is nothing special to consider: the oral cavity - it is the cavity. Hole, in other words. But meanwhile, it is a full and important organ of the digestive system, which is far from being as simple a structure as it may seem, and performs a number of functions. After all, we not only eat and talk.

Do you think you have enough fingers to list all the organs in your mouth? Even if you do not take each tooth separately, fingers will be typed more than two hands. Do not believe me? Count yourself: lips, teeth, gums, cheeks, sky, tongue, tongue, salivary glands, amygdala, bottom of cavity and isthmus of throat. They did not expect? But this is the structure of the oral cavity, and each of its organs is designed for something, even tonsils, which many people delete when inflamed "as unnecessary." Remove, by the way, only palatine tonsils, they are tonsils, and there are still tubal, lingual and pharyngeal tonsils, less familiar to the "general public". All of them are clusters of lymphoid tissue and perform a hematopoietic and protective function.

If the lips, cheeks, teeth and gums are more or less clear, then it is worth to look more closely at other organs. Take, for example, a language that in the oral cavity occupies a central position in all senses of the word. It is a muscular organ, the fibers of which are located in different directions, due to which the language is so mobile. Performing a variety of movements, it allows you to form numerous sounds, helps chew and push the chewed food into the pharynx, and on its surface there are many receptors that allow a person to distinguish tastes.

Above the oral cavity is limited to the sky, separating the nasal cavity and nasopharynx from it. On the front two thirds it is solid, has a bone base, and a third - a soft, formed by muscles. In the front part of it you can find several transverse ridges with the tongue. They are called palatine alveoli and represent the rudiments of well-developed animal organs that help them chew their food. The sky ends with a soft tongue that blocks the entrance to the nasopharynx at the moment of swallowing.

But here the oral cavity is not so interesting; Perhaps, the only thing that can be distinguished here is the lingual almond located under the very root of the tongue. It is already the organ of the immune system, which is involved in the disinfection of food.

Salivary glands deserve special attention . Oral cavity includes even a few groups of such glands: multiple small - buccal, palatal and lingual, and large pairs - parotid, submandibular and sublingual. Their destination is clear from the name: they develop a special secret - saliva. Its quantity and composition strongly depends on the properties of the food consumed, and you yourself know that lemon, for example, "drives saliva". Sublingual and submaxillary glands "produce" a more dense saliva, and the largest glands are parotid - more liquid. In total, for a day the glands of an adult person are isolated up to two liters of saliva, and this occurs reflexively, without our participation and desire. Salivation in general - the reflex unconditional, but sometimes it can be conditional, as an answer to various olfactory, visual and other stimuli. When we say at the sight of appetizing food, "drooling" is not just a figure of speech, but just an illustration of the conditioned reflex of salivation.

Why do we need saliva? It contains enzymes that serve to pre-treat food that enters the body. Enzymes of the oral cavity split carbohydrates to glucose, and its bactericidal substance lysozyme produces disinfection of food.