Human kidney, illustration and micrograph 插畫檔

Illustration of human kidney and light micrograph of a section through a kidney cortex showing glomeruli (small round). A glomerulus forms part of the kidney's functional unit, the nephron, of which there are about one million in a kidney. A glomerulus is a tightly coiled network of capillaries. As blood passes through it, water and metabolic wastes are filtered through the capillary walls. The filtrate then drains to the Bowman's capsule lumen (white) that surrounds the glomerulus. From the capsule, the filtrate passes into tubules where most of the water is reabsorbed. The waste products pass out of the body in the urine.