10 Things You Might’ve Been Better Off Not Knowing About Your Body

Andreas Vesalius De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (On the fabric of the human body in seven books), 1543

1. The average human body comprises enough fat to make seven bars of soap, enough iron to make a medium sized nail, enough potassium to explode a toy cannon, enough lime to whitewash a small chicken coop, enough sugar to fill a jam jar, and enough sulfur to rid a dog of fleas.

2. A complete skeleton is worth between $5,000 and $7,500 to a medical student; your skull alone would fetch only about $450.

3. Your mouth produces about one quart of saliva per day.

4. Demodex folliculorum has eight stumpy legs and a tail, is about a third of a millimeter long, and loves nothing more than to recline in the warm, oily pits of your hair follicles. Most adults have this mite, usually on the head, but especially in eyelashes. And often, they’re in nipples.

5. You have approximately 4,000 wax glands in each ear.

6. The average adult stool weighs about 4 ounces. And half of the bulk of your feces comprises the dead bodies of bacteria that live inside your intestines.

7. The average male foot exudes half a pint of sweat each day.

8. If it weren’t for the slimy mucous that clings to and lines the walls of your gut, your stomach would readily digest itself.

9. The average person will pass about 11,000 gallons of urine in a lifetime.

10. A man weighing 200 lbs. would provide enough meat to feed 100 cannibals in one sitting.

The article above appeared in the Scatterbrained section of the September – October 2007 issue of mental_floss magazine. It is excerpted from 5 People Who Died During Sex (and 100 Other Terribly Tasteless Lists) by Karl Shaw. It is reprinted here with permission.

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