An introduction to human physiology / by Augustus D. Waller.

  • Waller, Augustus.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An introduction to human physiology / by Augustus D. Waller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    PRaFACE I have written this book luitli a distinct consciousness that physio- logy in a medical, school is, in conjunction loith anatomy, the intro- duction to medicine and to surgery of those who will he engaged in ' general practice,' and I hope that the volume may he found to justify its title of' Human Physiology ' with reference to the position that the subject shoidd occupy in medical education, as the junction to ivhich anatomy, chemistry, and physics converge, and from which the principles of medicine and of surgery diverge. Physiology does not consist in a knotoledge of recondite pheno- mena, of difficult names, and of complicated instruments. It shoidd fundamentally consist in the living mental picture of lohat the great organs below a man's shin are like, what they are doing, how they can he examined, what happens when they are not working properly, how their actions hang together, hoiv they may he influenced for good and for evil. But physiology, as it is written, contains more than this, and, in sparing measure, it is loell that the ' Institutes of Medicine' shoidd not be restricted to the visibly ' useful,' or to the obviously ' utilisahle.' A short course of practical physiology is of the utmost value to the student of medicine, not merely because it puts into his hands the methods of everyday medical chemistry and ]}hysics, hut because it heljLS to correct that credulous bias or primitive 'suggestibility' which is a physiological property of the human brain, and only too apt to be fostered by unmitigated bookwork. Practical pihysxology is the indispensable adjuvant and corrective of hook-physiology.