WILTIMS #10: Just like spreading butter!

Sorry,  about yesterday's lacking post! This should more than make up for it.

Yesterday was our first fully-fledged anatomy lab and it turns out I'm pretty handy with a scalpel! We had a fairly simple task for the day: skin the chest and then remove the subcutaneous tissue (gross yellow fat) to expose the deep fascia (thin clear membrane) just above the musculature.

There are 27 cadavers for our class and as with any population, we have people of all shapes and sizes. The lady two down from us is frighteningly skinny and there is one man whose enormous belly you can see from across the room. Our gentleman was a very healthy weight which made everything that much easier for our group. Under the leathery skin is about a quarter inch thick layer of fat. The fat has a consistency something like if you filled the juicy flesh of an orange or grapefruit with congealed butter. So it's packaged in tubes of connective tissue that will shred with very little pressure, producing a slimy, oily yellowish substance. You can use either forceps (big tweezers) or a hemostat (clamp-able tweezers) to pull away the skin while using scissors of a scalpel to pry away the tissue below.

Most groups had a hard time separating the skin from the fat and afterward, simply scraped the fat off both the skin and underlying fascia, throwing the fat away (to be stored for cremation at the end of the year). We, however, did such a good job separating the skin from the fat that we were dared by the instructor try to keep the subcutaneous tissue in one giant piece. Unlike with the skin, we couldn't use any grasping tools because the fat would shred under the pressure, so we did it by hand. It was a real pain to get started, but once we had a handhold, we made quick work of it. When the instructor came back around he quite loudly said, "Wow!" The other professors who came by had similar reactions and said that they should use ours as an example. Needless to say, I was very proud.

Today, was a whirlwind of histology and anatomy terms. I thought I'd share with you some of the more daunting examples: syncytiotrophoblast, pericardiacophrenic artery, and lamina fibroreticularis.

TIL: The heart has a fibrous skeleton that surrounds and provides structural support for the various valves. In some large mammals, like the ox and elephant, it is partially ossified, becoming actual hard bone.