Chapter XIX 

 PHYSIOLOGICAL REGULATIONS 



"^ 157. Meanings of eegulation 



While the entire study pursued has been concerned with physio- 

 logical regulations, no refined definition of the term has been at- 

 tempted. Rather, concrete notions of what happens to perpetuate 

 the properties of organisms have been allowed to accumulate. 

 Many connotations and implications commonly attached to the 

 term regulation have thereby been left behind. Some of the 

 charms of the word Regulations are, perhaps, displaced by specific 

 correlations among physiological quantities. It remains to be 

 decided whether the series of relations that was ascertained to 

 exist among selected quantitative data is of the sort meant by 

 biologists who discuss self -regulation. 



Definite notions of what are now called regulations in organ- 

 isms have been familiar since at least 580 b.c. ''The preservation 

 of health consists in an accurate adjustment of forces ( laovonlav 

 Tuv Svvaneuv, balance of tendencies)," wrote Alcmaeon the physi- 

 cian of Crotona (Diels, '03, p. 107). ''The ascendency {novapxlav 

 of any one of the forces leads to sickness, . . . while health resides 

 in balancing (avunerpov Kpaaiv) of qualities." Approving repeti- 

 tions of that idea recur, as in Plato (Phaedo, verse F 36) ; and the 

 Hippocratic doctrines of physical constitution or maintenance 

 (fcpao-ts , a tempering), and of innate tendency to recover {Vis medi- 

 catrix naturae) are said to be corollaries of it (see Brock, '29, p. 6, 

 9, 103). The restatements of these doctrines in the medical 

 sciences of the centuries up to ours have been reviewed by 

 Neuburger ('26). 



A modern definition of regulation has been offered as follows : 

 "We shall understand by regulation any occurrence or group of 

 occurrences in a living organism after any disturbance of its 

 organization or normal functional state, and which leads to a reap- 

 pearance of this organization or this state, or at least to a certain 

 approach thereto" (Driesch, '08, p. 166). 



In these and other concepts I gather that regulation is either 

 (a) the processes and events that favor preservation or recovery 



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