Portal:Medicine/Selected article/43, 2007

The heart is a muscular organ responsible for pumping blood through the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions, or a similar structure in the annelids, mollusks, and arthropods.^[1] The term cardiac (as in cardiology) means "related to the heart" and comes from the Greek καρδία, kardia, for "heart." The heart is composed of cardiac muscle, an involuntary muscle tissue which is found only within this organ.^[2] The average human heart beating at 72 BPM, will beat approximately 2.5 billion times during a lifetime of 66 years.

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