Coronary Circulation
Just like every other organ in the body, the heart needs its own blood supply. It gets this
blood in thecoronary circulation. Although blood fills the chambers of the heart, the
heart muscle tissue is so thick that it needs its own blood vessels to deliver oxygen and
nutrients into the muscle. The coronary circulation is part of the systemic circulation. The
vessels that deliver oxygen-rich blood to the heart muscle are calledcoronary arteries.The
coronary arteries branch directly from the aorta, just above the heart, as shown inFigure
18.14. The vessels that remove the deoxygenated blood from the heart muscle are known as
cardiac veins. Problems with the coronary circulation are often referred to asheart disease.
Figure 18.14: In coronary circulation, the arteries that bring oxygen to the cardiac cells
branch off the aorta; heart attacks are caused by blockages of the coronary arteries and
blockages in the coronary arteries stop oxygen from getting to the heart muscle. ( 8 )
The circulation of blood around the body has been studied by people for a long time. The
roles of the organs of the circulatory system were a mystery for many hundreds of years. For
example, it was once believed that the left ventricle and arteries were filled with air, and
the liver made blood. The pulmonary circulation was first discovered by a Syrian physician,
Ibn al-Nafis, in 1242. Ibn al-Nafis was the first person to describe the coronary circulation.
However, credit for the first description of blood circulation is given to an English physician