The Amazing Laboratory in the Body

From Ohr Avigdor Shaar Habechinah by Rabbi Avigdor Miller 

Amazingly, more than 500 vital functions have been identified with the liver. All the blood leaving the stomach and intestines passes through the liver. The liver processes this blood and breaks down the nutrients and chemicals into forms that are easier for the body to use.

​The liver has been called the miracle laboratory of the body. It is saturated with blood containing all the nutrients and chemicals processed in the laboratory and then distributed throughout the body. In fact, the liver holds about one pint (13 percent) of the body’s blood supply at any given moment.

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Amazingly, more than 500 vital functions have been identified with the liver

The liver is one of the most important scenes of this transformation. It is the place where the blood gathers together all the freshly processed materials and sets out to distribute them throughout the body. Without a liver a person couldn’t exist. Yet if even a small part of the liver remains, it is able to perform the function. That’s a miracle. If the surgeons find it necessary to cut out major parts of a person’s liver, he still is able to exist because what remains takes over the function of the entire liver. The entire liver was not superfluous; it just did the job better. The little bit of liver that remains gets busy and does more than it did before. It’s one of the miracles of Hashem that our bodies adjust to emergencies.