Talk:Organ (anatomy)/Archive 1

Contradiction in first two sentence

"There is never a "main" tissue" "The main tissue is the one that is unique for the specific organ"

The word main tissue is also followed by a link in parenthesis to Parenchyma, which is defined as the functional portion compared to the stroma, the structural portion. Which again contradicts the definitions used in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Taltamir (talk • contribs) 06:25, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Redirect

Organ (anatomy) → Organ example Anatomical meaning is primary. Neutrality^talk 06:50, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

• Are you sure about that? My dictionary lists the 'musical instrument' definition first. Also, if amount of information means anything, the organ (music) article is quite large compared to organ (anatomy), which is little more than a list of links to other articles. Although I think it is fine how it is, organ (music) would be my choice for promoting to primary definition. —Mike 07:46, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose: Organs should be a disambig page. violet/riga (t) 11:01, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. The musical instrument definition is the first that comes to mind. (Which does not mean it should be moved to Organ - a disambig is just fine.) — Itai (f&t) 12:16, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. Six of one; half a dozen of the other. Retain the status quo. Noisy | Talk 12:26, Feb 5, 2005 e.g utc.............
• Oppose. Looking at the articles linking to Organ, it seems that rather a lot of them, possibly most, are doing so in a musical context. Indeed after further investigation, I suspect I would probably have accepted Organ (musical instrument) -> Organ because the first meaning that occurs to me is the musical one. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:14, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose Since Organ is such a sparse disambiguation page, I would support Organ (musical instrument) -> Organ BlankVerse 09:57, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose Just completing massive Organ disambiguation pass. Organ (music) dominates by a large margin and should be primary. jafmuse 19:10, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. All this opposition (myself included) and nobody has moved the Organ (anatomty) out of the Organ namespace. I will give one week for any naysayers before I make the move. Bill D 00:05, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

OTHER Topics

• The following was hidden in the discussion page of the disambiguation entry:

Where do glands such as thyroid or sex glands go? Also, subparts of organs, e.g. the pituary gland or hypothalamus within the brain are distinct regions of cells within a mulitcelluar organism that perform a distinct function, hence by the above definition they would be organs, yet normally they are not seen as independent organs but rather as parts of organs.

which makes MH self think that justice has not been done to the concept that We seem to believe warrants not only its own word but a 5-letter one at that for the only matter of debate for the past 4 years to have been about the relative importance of a particular musical instrument versus this concept that has existed most likely since the beginning of human thought about physiology

• Why does "vital organs" redirect here? This is just one of many examples where Wikipedian deletionists have gone crazy with the hatchet in their zeal for minimalism. I know that many health enthusiasts consider all organs to be vital, especially alternative and natural health advocates; I agree that this is ideal. However, humans don't (usually) immediately die when they lose an appendix or tonsil, or even a kidney, so I'd like to see some ranking, or at least qualification: are the brain, heart, lungs, stomach, liver, and 1 kidney all that are considered "vital", or are there more? What about bones, muscles, and skin; I know we can lose a lot and get by, but at what point is life impossible?

Shanoman 21:08, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

• The article doesn't even mention the term 'vital organ'. If the Vital Organs page redirects here, it should at least explain what the term means (and why, apparently, it doesn't deserve a proper mention in an encyclopedia when the term was a part of medicine for years). 81.159.22.0 03:00, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

A picture, please!

I think you'll find by comparison (e.g. http://www.acebo.com/organs.gif ) that a picture makes a vas deferens

Liver and maybe onions -- I'm not sure if I can stand the heartburn

Seriously though, I thought that the liver was considered a gland and *not* an organ. For whatever reason, I thought that the two were mutually exclusive. Well, I say for whatever reason, but I fairly distinctly remember that from my A&P class.Auldglory 19:27, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Secretion

My anatomy teacher recently said that all animal organs are similar in the fact that they all secrete something. Is this true, and should it be mentioned?? Guitarmankev1 ^(TALK)_(MUSIC) 02:31, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

My understanding (echoed in the article) is that an organ is anything made up of multiple tissues. The heart is an organ, but I think any secretion is incidental as it's main function is to pump blood. Such an assertion within the article should be justified with a source. WLU 14:31, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

reproductive plant organs

reproductive plant organs mentioned here are flower, seed and fruit. But gymnosperms only have seeds. Should/could this please be edited to either include gymnosperm reproductive organs or delete altogether as the article will get a bit lengthly. 208.42.90.99 (talk) 23:33, 28 January 2008 (UTC)belindalibrarian

Adipose tissue

This pubmed reference states: Adipose tissue, regarded only as an energy storage organ until the last decade, is now known as the biggest endocrine organ of the human body. Also a few references in article Adipose tissue seem to support that statement. Could/should than "Adipose tissue" be mentioned as an organ in the article? --VanBurenen (talk) 12:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Hey shouldn't you guys have a seperate article for the list of human organs. 97.77.53.136 (talk) 00:51, 10 October 2009 (UTC):)

Too Much Focus On "Organ Systems" And Not Enough On "Organs"

While I'm not an expert, I think the content of this page is correct. That being said, I think there are some serious problems with this page.

1. It needs to better define organs and non-organs. For example, earlier comments question the relationship between glands and organs. I think that needs to be covered here.
2. Without counting words, nearly half of the article focuses on Organ Systems and not Organs.
3. The page on Organs seems a strange place to list Organ Systems, especially mammalian systems as compared to organ systems of all organisms. IMO, this goes from bad to worse as there is a page on Organ Systems that has a nearly identical list. I say "nearly identical" because there are some discrepencies in the two lists. Without automation, it is simply impossible to maintain two copies of the same data. I think the list of organ systems should be merged into the Organ Systems page and removed from the Organ (anatomy) page.
4. The page on Organs does not have a list, or even a partial list, of organs. That seems wrong. Especially being that the page has a list of Organ Systems.
5. While this page hints that Organs are part of a taxonomy that describes the complexity of structures in biology, it does not state the actual taxonomy. I don't really know the exact taxonomy as my last foray into biology was 2.5 decades ago, but it is something like:

• Organelles
• Cells (biology)
• Tissue (biology)
• Organ (anatomy)
• Organ Systems
• Organisms

I think that this taxonomy needs to be explicitly stated on this page and all the associated pages. See Phylum for an example of describing how a term fits into a taxonomy.

Finally, while I am not totally up-to-speed on the naming of Wiki pages, I am surprised that the disambiguation term for organs is "anatomy" while the disambiguation term for cells and tissues is "biology". I'm not sure that "anatomy" is apropos to "cells" but am certain that "biology" is apropos to organs. This leads me to feel that this page should have "biology" as its disambiguation term and not "anatomy".

Neil Smithline (talk) 18:06, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposed merge

I have proposed a merge between Viscus and this page because:

• These pages are about the same topic. The article 'viscus' even states "In anatomy, a viscus /ˈvɪskəs/ is an internal organ, and viscera is the plural form".
• Per WP:COMMONNAME we should have the article 'organ' rather than 'viscus'.
• Centralising the content will improve the readability, viewers, and hopefully quality and comprehensibility of the article.

Thoughts? Kind regards, LT910001 (talk) 00:28, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• Support. danielkueh (talk) 01:37, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

This merge appears to be complete, with "viscus" redirecting to "organ (anatomy)." Looks good to me, though the lede here is a bit off-putting. I think the details around the terminology could come a bit later to help make the intro more approachable for the reader. While "viscera" is in common usage, I have not often heard the term "viscus." Also the explanation of parenchyma vs. stroma could be written more smoothly. "There is..." isn't a great start. --Karinpower (talk) 15:59, 30 June 2014 (UTC)--Karinpower (talk) 15:58, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Lead definition

I am almost in a edit war and I want to be sure that I am correct. An organ is a collection of DIFFERENT tissues joined in a structural unit to serve a common function. Correct? If I am not please tell me why. I think that this page will prove my point.

Do you have a reliable source? If you're not sure what I'm talking about, see WP:RS. danielkueh (talk) 19:39, 17 December 2013 (UTC)