Kidney
The kidney is an organ whose functional unit is the nephron. There are about one million nephrons per kidney.
Each nephron is normally connected to a collecting duct housed in the adrenal medulla and adrenal cortex. The nephron is composed of three important areas: the glomerulus capsule, loop of henle, and distal tube.
The glomerulus capsule surrounds a glomerulus connected to the renal artery. Blood plasma filters through thin walls of a capillary, some of which the glomerulus capsule absorbs. The rest is drained into the renal artery. In this manner, all the blood of the body flows through the kidney about once every five minutes.
The filtrate consists of water and a nonprotein solute (sodium, potassium, chloride, glucose, and urea). As the filtrate moves into the loop of henle, a large portion of the filtrate is resorbed.
The filtrate then passes into the distal tubes and the collecting duct, which are strongly influenced by hormones. These structures concentrate the filtrate further so only 1% of the original filtrate volume is passed to the bladder via the ureters in the form of urine.
References
Crafts, R.C. 1985. A Textbook of Human Anatomy. John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York. 906 pp.
Eckert, R. & D. Randall. 1983. Animal Physiology, second edition. W.H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco. 830 pp.
Van Amerongen, C. The Way Things Work; Book Of The Body. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979.
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