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The mouth plays an important role in eating, drinking, and speaking. Mouth breathing refers to the act of breathing through the mouth (as a temporary backup system) if there is an obstruction to breathing through the nose, which is the designated breathing organ for the human body. [8]
The respiratory system (also respiratory apparatus, ventilatory system) is a biological system consisting of specific organs and structures used for gas exchange in animals and plants. The anatomy and physiology that make this happen varies greatly, depending on the size of the organism, the environment in which it lives and its evolutionary ...
Image 23 from the 1903 book by William F. Barry, M.D., The Hygiene of the Schoolroom. Barry describes this child as having "the typical face of a mouth-breather". In the early 20th century, "mouth-breather" was a technical term used by doctors to describe children who were breathing through their mouths due to an underlying medical condition.
However, chronic mouth breathing leads to, or is a sign of, illness, and it does not have mucus in the mouth to trap the unwanted substance unlike the nostrils [5] [6] [7] They end in the microscopic dead-end sacs always opened, though the diameters of the various sections can be changed by the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
The soft palate (also known as the velum, palatal velum, or muscular palate) is, in mammals, the soft tissue constituting the back of the roof of the mouth. The soft palate is part of the palate of the mouth; the other part is the hard palate.
The breathing of all vertebrates with lungs consists of repetitive cycles of inhalation and exhalation through a highly branched system of tubes or airways which lead from the nose to the alveoli. [4] The number of respiratory cycles per minute is the breathing or respiratory rate, and is one of the four primary vital signs of life. [5]
Upper respiratory system, with the nasopharynx, oropharynx and laryngopharynx labeled at left. The upper portion of the pharynx, the nasopharynx, extends from the base of the skull to the upper surface of the soft palate. [2] It includes the space between the internal nares and the soft palate and lies above the oral cavity.
Their function in the respiratory system is to extract oxygen from the atmosphere and transfer it into the bloodstream, and to release carbon dioxide from the bloodstream into the atmosphere, in a process of gas exchange. Respiration is driven by different muscular systems in different species.