PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 



In offering the second edition of this work to the public, 

 I feel it obligatory upon me to express my warmest thanks for the 

 extremely favourable reception given the book upon its first 

 appearance, by readers and especially by critics. I have been 

 pleasantly surprised to realise — as I have been made to realise by 

 personal talks, by letters, and particularly by the criticism of pro- 

 fessional journals both at home and abroad — that the subject of 

 general physiology excites active interest and receives abundant 

 recognition in the circles not simply of theoretical natural 

 science, but of practical medicine. It gives me much satisfaction 

 to perceive in this a sign that the practical medicine of the day 

 acknowledges the profound importance of a knowledge of the 

 general physiology of cell-life for an understanding of the 

 physiological and pathological phenomena exhibited in the cell- 

 community of the human body. I am encouraged in this xievf by 

 the gratifying fact that cell-physiological researches have 

 increased greatly in number during the last few years. In this 

 second edition I have endeavoured to note the more important 

 of the later results. Unfortunately, because of lack of space, 

 I have been obliged to treat many of these with more brevitj- 

 than I desired, and to curtail the amount of attention given 

 in the first edition to some of the older work. But by the 

 introduction of a considerable number of new figures, and the 

 replacement of certain fault}' ones by bettei', I trust that the 

 whole has been made more comjirehensible. I cannot expect the 

 present edition to be free from errors and faults ; but I trust that 

 every critic will recognise the great difficulties involved in the 

 treatment of such a large amount of material, and will be 

 indulgent towards mistakes. I am sincerely grateful to my critics 

 for having called attention to errors in the first edition. So 



