Question

Detail the vessels that blood flows through by explaining the path (naming the vessels) that a drop of blood would have to take to get from the big toe through the sytem and back to the big toe..

Answer 1

The blood from big toe begin to flow back via medial marginal vein of foot that joins with medial end of dorsal venous arch of foot to form great saphenous vein. The blood flows via great saphenous vein that passes through the saphenous opening and drains into femoral vein after piercing the femoral sheath. The femoral vein drains into external iliac veins that joins with internal iliac veins to form common iliac veins. The blood after passing into common iliac veins drain into inferior vena cava that if formed by fusion of right and left common iliac veins. The inferior vena cava drains into right atrium. The blood from right atrium passes through right ventricle, right pulmonary artery, left pulmonary vein, left atrium and left ventricle respectively to reach the aorta. From the aorta the blood flows into abdominal aorta which divides into common iliac arteries. The blood flows into external iliac arteries formed by division of common iliac arteries and then into femoral artery. From the femoral artery the blood flows via popliteal artery, anterior tibial artery and dorsalis pedis artery respectively to reach first dorsal metatarsal artery that supplies the big toe.