Thorax: thoracic wall, lungs, pleura, mediastinum, heart, great vessels
Human Anatomy · MBBS
Beating heart
Interactive 3DA stylized heart pulsing at the rate you set, with its key chambers labelled.
Controls
Drag the sliders or type a value — the simulation updates live.
bpm
40bpm120bpm
Study notes
A stab wound to the chest causes breathlessness; X-ray shows air where lung should be. The knife pierced the parietal pleura, letting air into the pleural space — a pneumothorax. Normally the pleural space has only a film of fluid creating suction that keeps the lung expanded against the chest wall. Air breaks this seal, and the elastic lung collapses like a deflated balloon. A chest tube drains the air and re-expands the lung.