Text-book of physiology, general, special and practical

Front matter

Digitized by the Internet Arcliive in 2014

TEXT-BOOK OF PHYSIOLOGY.

TEXT-BOOK

Preface

DuEiNG the winter session 1841-42, I, for the first time, gave a course of lectures on Histology, in Edinburgh, and the following year, Mr Quekett gave a similar course in London. In 1848, when appointed to the chair of the Institutes of Medicine in this University, I began to teach Physiology systematically, and have done so every winter since then, while the lectures on Histology were delivered only in summer. In 1862, I was enabled to instittite courses of instruction in Practical Physiology, as they are at present taught both during the winter and summer sessions, having obtained at that time a new laboratory, furnished with all the modern instruments of precision necessary for the purpose.

In 1858, under the title of Outlines of Physiology," I published an extension of the article I contributed to the last edition of the EncyclopcBdia Britannica. The rapid exhaustion of a large edition of this little work, demonstrated the great demand that existed for a short treatise on the subject. But I have hitherto hesitated to write a text-book, apprehensive that the extensive field, theoretical and practical, now occupied by the science, would render the work too bulky. Thus a knowledge of analytical organic chemistry and of practical physics is at present admitted to be essential for comprehending and manipulating the instruments which in recent times have so largely assisted in advancing the subject — a knowledge not re-

PREFACE.

quired in the medical curriculum. In yielding, therefore, at length to the earnest and repeated requests of my classes to furnish them with a book that would aid their studies, it has to be seen how far the attempt to condense in this volume so comprehensive a science will satisfy the expectations and meet the requirements of the physiological student.

The illustrative plates contain figures which have been chosen simply on the score of what has appeared to me their utility. Like the text, they are compressed into the smallest possible space, and have been produced by photolithography, in order to diminish cost. Some of them, in consequence, although suj9B.ciently characteristic, may not be so perfect as good woodcuts, but the latter would have seriously increased the price of the book.

I have to thank my assistant, Dr McKendrick, for the valuable aid he has rendered me throughout the progress of the work, but more especially in the sections on the Physical Properties of the Tissues, on Practical Chemical Physiology, and on Practical Experimental Physiology, which were entirely written by him.

J. Hughes Bennett.

Edinburgh, November 5. 1872.

Contents

INTRODUCTION, 1