We all know how important communication is in a family, a business, a country. But this is not a man-made idea. God thought of it long ago.
Just How Fast can my Blood Travel?
Your circulatory system is just one of the many complex communication systems of your body. It starts in your 12-ounce heart and pumps about 72 times a minute, 100,000 times a day, 40 million times a year. About 2100 gallons of blood go through it every day with blood exiting the heart at 40 miles/hour with a force equal to a 10-pound weight being lifted 3 feet off the ground twice each minute, not stopping!
Say you do a little exercise. Your heart will increase its output to 20 pints/minute, and in a strenuous exercise up to 42 pints/minute. That means a blood cell will make the round trip from your heart to your feet and back in just 17 seconds.
All this pumping would be fruitless apart from the blood in your body. A 160-pound person has about 5 quarts of the red stuff. It is made up of several parts- red cells, white cells, platelets, and plasma- that we have discussed before. A red cell is the oxygen transport from the lungs to the cells. These blood cells are available to all 5 trillion living cells in the body by means of the capillaries.
How Many Red Cells Do I need to Survive?
Without plenty of oxygen, all the living cells in your body would die. The red cell is perfectly designed in a donut shape to carry the maximum amount of oxygen. Your blood contains 150 million red cells in every ounce. They live about 90 to 127 days and then are remade in the liver and long bones. Your body must make about a billion new red cells each day, 12,000 a second, to keep you alive.
These red cells contain hemoglobin that gives them the red color. Hemoglobin greatly enhances the ability of blood to absorb and thus transport oxygen, in fact, 60 times better than water. This means that a 160-pound person would need 300 quarts of blood to do the same work that 5 quarts does. Of course, our bodies couldn’t contain that 75 gallons of water! Thus, hemoglobin must have been present from the start.
What Does the Bible Say about Blood?
The Bible clearly states, “The life of the flesh is in the blood.” (Lev. 17:11) Yet not long ago standard medical procedure was to remove the sick blood so the body could get well. George Washington died from such a treatment. Today we transfuse blood into a sick or weak person to restore life. This is just another example of the Bible’s accurate scientific statements as opposed to science’s changing theories.