PEEFACE 



THE volume now put before the reader by the editor is a sequel to 

 " Recent Advances in Physiology," and deals with certain branches 

 of the science other than those dealt with in that volume, the 

 treatment of the subject-matter being, in both, on the same general 

 lines. The aim of the editor and his coadjutors has been to write 

 up their views on certain selected subjects which, both by their 

 importance and interest, will stimulate the student, give him a 

 view wider than that which the ordinary text-book can give him, 

 and at the same time rivet his attention on subjects which have a 

 particular application to Pathology and Clinical Medicine. While 

 the former volume dealt mainly with problems of metabolism, 

 secretion, and excretion, this is devoted to the consideration of 

 certain problems concerning the circulation and respiration, the 

 neuro-muscular system, and vision. Prof. B. Moore, writing on the 

 relation of the heart-beat to its nutritive fluid, has developed this 

 subject into a general consideration of the equilibrium of colloid 

 and crystalloid in living cells. Mr. Martin Flack has discussed the 

 present position of the myogenic and neurogenic theories of the 

 heart-beat, and analysed the recent researches which have modified 

 the lines of thought on this subject. Dr. Thomas Lewis has given 

 the reader an account of the venous pulse, and those methods of 

 investigating the cardiac cycle in man which have done so much, 

 in the hands of Dr. James Mackenzie and others, to elucidate the 

 different forms of heart trouble. The editor has dealt, firstly, with 

 the wonderful advances in experimental method made possible by 

 Carrel's surgical union of the blood-vessels ; secondly, with blood 

 pressure and its measurement in man. He has endeavoured to 

 refute the supposed importance of blood pressure as a mechanical 

 factor in the formation of lymph, production of dropsy, excretion of 



