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Hello and good morning! Let me introduce myself and my
twin brother. I am Lu and my twin is Ng. Our master is
Robert. We stay in his body. Robert knows that he will
die without us. He needs us to provide him with oxygen
to live. My twin brother and I occupy the greater part
of the chest on either side of our elder brother, Heart.
We are made up of millions of tiny air sacs and are very
elastic. Each air sac is covered by a network of fine
blood vessels. The oxygen in the air passes through the
thin walls of the air sacs into the blood vessels. It is
then carried to Heart who passes it to the rest of the
body to supply the body cells. At the same time, `used
air' with carbon dioxide collected from the body cells
passes from the blood out into the air sacs and is
breathed out from the body.
The three of us, Heart, my twin brother and I, are
protected by the rib cage because we are fragile.
Whenever Robert breathes in air, we expand and when he
breathes out, we contract. Heart works very hard too. He
has to pump and supply blood to all parts of Robert's
body. We work day and night, night and day, ceaselessly.
The problem is, I think I am dying. You see, Robert
smokes. He tells his wife that he has given it up but
the truth is, he smokes when she is not around.
Benjamin, his son, caught him smoking once and warned
him about killing me with the nicotine in his
cigarettes. Robert knows that. He watches television and
reads the papers every day but he says he finds it
difficult to stop completely. He is trying and has
reduced the number of cigarettes to two a day. For his
sake and all of us, I hope he will be successful in
giving up this habit soon. |
