VI PREFACE 



It is a constant experience of clinical instructors who would employ 

 scientific methods of instruction, that they find the students not only 

 indifferent to an analysis of their cases from the functional standpoint, 

 but also that they are too inadequately, prepared in fundamental phys- 

 iologic knowledge, to make the analysis possible. The student may 

 have a superficial acquaintance with the main facts of physiologic science 

 but have failed to acquire the enquiring habit of mind which will en- 

 able him, through reflection, comparison, and personal research, to ap- 

 ply the knowledge in practical, medicine and surgery. 



For this lack of correlation between the laboratory and clinical stud- 

 ies, the clinical instructors are not alone responsible. The laboratory 

 courses are frequently given without any attempt being made to show 

 the student the bearing of the subject in the interpretation of disease, 

 or to train him so that in his later years he may be able to adapt the 

 methods of investigation which he learned in the laboratory, to the study 

 of morbid conditions. It is self-evident that (without any knowledge 

 of disease) the extent to which the student in the earlier years of the 

 course could be expected to appreciate the clinical significance of what 

 he learns in the laboratory is limited, but this should not deter the in- 

 structor from indicating whenever he can, the general application of 

 scientific knowledge in the interpretation of diseased conditions. But 

 the chief remedy of the evil undoubtedly lies partly in the continuance 

 of certain of the laboratory courses into the clinical years, and partly 

 in the study of medical literature in which the application of physiology 

 and biochemistry in the practice of medicine is emphasized. 



Notwithstanding the sufficient number of excellent textbooks in phys- 

 iology available to the medical student, there is none in which partic- 

 ular emphasis is laid upon the application of the subject in the routine 

 practice of medicine. In the present volume the attempt is made to 

 meet such a want, by reviewing those portions of physiology and bio- 

 chemistry which experience has shown to be of especial value to the 

 clinical investigator. The work is not intended to be a substitute, 

 either for the regular textbooks in physiology, or for those in functional 

 pathology. It is supplementary to such volumes. It does not start like 

 the modern test in functional pathology, with a consideration of the 

 diseased condition, and then proceed to analyze the possible causes and 

 consequences of the disturbances of function which this exhibits; but 

 it deals with the present-day knowledge of human physiology in so far 

 as this can be used in a general way to advance the understanding of 

 disease. In a sense it is therefore an advanced text in physiology for 

 those about to enter upon their clinical instruction, and at the same 



