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PREFACE. 



American laboratories of physiology have usually been 

 established in medical schools after these institutions have 

 already associated histology with pathology, and physio- 

 logical chemistry with general chemistry. The problems 

 presented in those American laboratories of physiology, 

 which are departments of medical schools, are, therefore, 

 essentially the physical problems of physiology. And 

 such are the problems which occupy the major part of this 

 manual. The student who has but four years to devote to 

 the study of medicine cannot consistently be assigned 

 more than 100 hours to 120 hours of laboratory work in 

 physical physiology. How to most profitably spend this 

 brief period is a question which has engaged the attention 

 of the writer for a number of years. 



In the choice of the work to be assigned to the student 

 it has been taken for granted that he has entered upon 

 his study of medicine with a working knowledge of physics 

 and of Algebra, and that laboratory work in physiology is 

 not begun until the student has made considerable prog- 

 ress in gross and minute anatomy. (Bourses in anatomy 

 and physiology should be so coordinated as to enable the 

 student to gain a thorough knowledge of the morphology 

 of an organ before he experiments upon its function. 



The method of presentation is purely inductive. The 

 student is given the technique and, through a series of 

 questions, he is guided in his observations. He is not, 

 however, told what he is expected to observe, nor is he told 



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