Human physiology, statical and dynamical, or, The conditions and course of the life of man / by John William Draper.

  • John William Draper
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Human physiology, statical and dynamical, or, The conditions and course of the life of man / by John William Draper. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    PREFACE. The publication of the text of the Lectures on Physiology which the author has given for many years in the University was originally con- templated at the repeated solicitation of his pupils, who have felt the ne^ cessity of having an outline of the science in its present state sufficiently brief for their use. There are some advantages attending such a publication of matter which has been employed in Lectures. Among these, condensation or compactness may be particularly mentioned. It is not possible to in- struct, for any length of time, classes of many hundred persons without detecting the more obvious imperfections of the course. An intelligence quickly springs up between the professor and his audience, which un- mistakably indicates to him where he is too diffuse and where obscure. But there are also disadvantages, more especially where Lectm'es are not read, but delivered orally from a text. Such a text, if published, will show many obscurities in its descriptions which were perhaps re- moved in the discourse. To write a complete treatise on Physiology demands an extent of knowledge possessed by very few men. What science is there which is not involved in explaining our structure and functions ? Anatomy, Chem- istry, Zoology, Botany, Geology, the various branches of Natural PhUos- ophy, which themselves require as their foundation ]\Iathematics. Well, therefore, may the author of this book, in view of his own imperfections as tried by such a standard, express his opinions with hesitation, and, at the conclusion of his labor, feel regret that he has ever undertaken a work, the execution of which, with even a moderate success, is so hard, and in which the detection of multitudes of imperfections is so easy. The science of Physiology is the result of the labors of thousands of the ablest men continued for centuries. Though of course, in its ad- vance, physicians have taken the prominent part, it is also under mani- fest obligations to men who did not belong to the medical profession. To recall the names of its many cultivators would have converted the following pages into a scientific history. The author desires to draw liis readers' attention particularly to this point, since he has found him- self constrained, by the plan and size of liis book, to avoid such a course-