What Is the General Structure and Function of the Urinary Tract?
The kidneys are paired, bean-shaped organs. The indentation of the “bean” is called the hilus, which is the area where the blood vessels, nerves and ureters enter and leave the kidney. The structural and functional unit of the kidney is the nephron. There are hundreds of these microscopic filtering units, and each has the ability to form urine by itself. Each nephron consists of a circular ball-shaped cluster of small blood vessels called a glomerulus, and a small tube called a renal tubule. Nephrons are responsible for removing urea, which is combined with water and other waste products to produce urine. The urine is emptied into the pelvis of the kidney, a collecting chamber located in the middle of the kidney in the area of the hilus. Urine from the kidney passes into the ureters, which are very thin tubes that extend from the kidney to the urinary bladder. Muscles in the walls of the ureters cause the urine to travel towards the bladder where it enters in small spurts. The bladder
