Veins – are a type of blood vessel that transports deoxygenated blood back to your heart from your organs. These are not the same as the arteries that carry oxygenated blood from your heart to the rest of your body.
Arteries – are muscular and elastic tubes that must carry blood under high pressures caused by the heart’s pumping motion. The pulse, which may be felt over an artery at the skin’s surface, is caused by the alternate expansion and contraction of the arterial wall when blood is forced into the arterial system via the aorta by the beating heart.