The Respiratory System

WHY THE RESPIRATORY SYSTEM? Virtually every book on scuba diving, including the open water teaching manuals, includes some information on anatomy and physiology of the respiratory system. Why is this material important to explain scuba diving? First, because it helps explain the origin of major problems that can result from pressure - decompression sickness and air embolism. Second, because it helps explain the one process vital to every dive: breathing compressed air under water. If …

…in the body come together to form the two great vena cavae, the superior, that carries blood leaving the head and neck, and the inferior, that carries blood leaving the rest of the body. Both vena cavae enter the heart at the level of the right atrium. Blood from the right atrium enters the right ventricle and then is pumped to the lungs to once again begin the process of oxygenation. The circle is completed.