Human Physiology: a Practical Course

Abstract

DURING the last twenty or thirty years, with the vast increase in physiological knowledge, especially from animal experiments and from the chemical point of view, there has been unfortunately an increasing divorce between medicine and physiology to the detriment of both. The researches of Haldane and his fellow-workers on respiration have been mainly human experiments, and probably most of his results could not have been carried out in any other way. This is the point of view of the book before us, and the experiments given can all be performed on the students themselves. It is based on the practical course for the honour school of physiology at Oxford, and taken with Sir Charles Sherrington's book on “Mammalian Physiology “the ground is covered very thoroughly. Naturally, a large proportion of the book is devoted to respiration—nearly three-quarters, using respiration in its widest sense of the transport of oxygen and carbon dioxide by the blood as well as through the lungs. This section includes such important subjects as the effects of muscular work and the administration of oxygen, the determination of the basal metabolism, of the volume and reaction of the blood as well as the more usual determination of oxygen and carbon dioxide carrying capacity. The book does not, however, deal with respiration alone. Modern methods of blood examination are discussed, including the agglutination of the red cells, blood grouping, transfusion and the fragility of the red cells. The functions of the kidney are investigated, water diuresis is discussed, and methods given for the determination of the sugar and urea in the blood. The recent important work of J. B. S. Haldane on the maximum concentration of chloride and bicarbonate in the urine is very suitable for class work and is included.

Human Physiology: a Practical Course.

By C. G. Douglas J. G. Priestley. Pp. ix + 232. (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1924.) 12s. 6d. net.