FOREWORD. 



TENDENCY AND PURPOSE OF THE WORK. 



In the preparation of the forelying concise Textbook of Physiology 

 the author has been governed by an endeavor to provide for physicians 

 and students a book that should supply the needs of the practising 

 physician in larger measure than is done by the majority of similar 

 works. With this end in view a brief outline of pathological variations 

 is appended in every section to the description of the normal processes. 

 This is done for the purpose of directing the attention of the student 

 from the outset to the field of his future professional activity and of 

 pointing out the extent to which the morbid process represents a de- 

 rangement of the normal. On the other hand, opportunity is by this 

 means afforded the practising physician to renew acquaintance readily 

 with the theoretical doctrines that as a rule slip away from him all too 

 soon in the pursuit of his vocation. Here he can without effort look 

 back from the morbid phenomena under treatment to the normal pro- 

 cesses and in the recognition of these obtain new suggestions for correct 

 interpretation and treatment. From this standpoint the author has 

 described fully all those methods of investigation that may be employed 

 by the practitioner with great advantage and that as a rule are but 

 briefly treated in books on physiology. Reference may be made here 

 to the following sections: Blood-examination; graphic study of the 

 normal and abnormal heart -beat; heart-sounds and heart-murmurs; 

 the pulse ; the venous pulse ; transfusion ; normal and abnormal re- 

 spiratory murmurs; ventilation; examination of the air in dwellings; 

 the sputum ; deviations from the normal digestive processes ; diabetes ; 

 cholemia; the digestion in febrile patients; thermometry and calor- 

 imetry in the febrile state; examination of drinking-water; meat and 

 meat-preparations; excessive deposition of fat and muscle, and the 

 means for its relief ; examination of the normal urine and the determina- 

 tion of all pathological constituents, as well as of urinary concretions; 

 uremia, ammoniemia, uric-acid diathesis; morbid disturbances in 

 retention and evacuation of urine ; pathological alterations in the sudorif- 

 erous and sebaceous secretions; galvanic conductivity through the 

 skin ; gymnastics and therapeutic gymnastics ; pathological alterations 

 in the motor functions; laryngoscopy and rhinoscopy; pathology of 

 phonation and articulation; physiological principles underlying the 

 therapeutic application of electricity; constant currents and electrical 

 apparatus. 



In the consideration of every individual nerve and the differ- 

 ent nerve-centers a sketch of the pathological manifestations is 

 added. With relation to the nerve-centers the derangements of the 

 reflexes, those of conduction to the central organs, those of the respira- 



