The bell is there, at the back of the throat, and we don’t seem to remember it until it suffers some kind of inflammation and begins to hurt. The rest of the time, it doesn’t get too much of our attention. And it does not seem to do, in general, anything at all. What is the bell really good for?
The uvula, actually called the uvula, is a small fleshy mass located in the middle of the posterior border of the palate made up of three muscles: the tensor and levator palate, and the uvula muscle itself.
In general, it is considered that it does not have a specific function, but rather that it is a vestigial phylogenetic organ that, in its day, served something. But as the human being has evolved, it has lost its function and what remains are the remains of it. The same thing happens with the tailbone, male nipples or hair on the skin.
All these vestigial organs were collected in a long list of 86 of them drawn up in 1893 by Robert Wiedersheim . Since then, with more advanced and rigorous scientific research, some of those organs have shown that they did fulfill a specific function, but the same has not happened in the case of the uvula.
Even so, it is recognized that it helps to prevent food from moving up from the mouth to the nose and down the throat, preventing suffocation. And it also helps, with its slight back and forth movement, that the throat stays lubricated and moist. Some languages, such as French, also use the sounds that the uvula helps to articulate in its phonetics.
But in any case, they are not their own functions and can be performed perfectly without it. There are people whose uvula is removed for health reasons and this does not affect their quality of life at all.
