Physiology of Mammals and Other Vertebrates: A Textbook for Schools and Colleges

Excerpt from the preface: "Biology is a very large and varied subject which may be subdivided in many different ways. A common and usual one is to consider living organisms at a series of different levels, beginning with whole populations, then at the individual, organ system, tissue, cellular and molecular levels. Throughout the history of biology there have been changes in the particular level which has received most study and alos shifting fashions in the approach to a given or to several levels which were in vogue at that particular time. Often these fashions can be related to developments of new techniques which require the repetition and interpretation of previous work. Some aspects of the biological approach remain constant despite these winds of change and one of these is the relation between structure and function. This relationship can be discussed at all levels of the organization and it is basic to the approach given in this book. A great deal of this approach tends to be at the organ system level and as such continues to present problems to the biologist, but at the present time there is a great deal of emphasis at a molecular level so that no modern functional approach to the subject would be complete without some inclusion of the biochemistry of cellular activities. In this field we try to present a brief account of the rapidly expanding aspects in the context of more classical biology and to emphasize some of the principal biochemical processes rather than give a detailed account of metabolic pathways. Here, as well as elsewhere in the book, space has not been sufficient to allow a critical approach, and while much of the anatomical and physiological material is now well established the same is not necessarily true of the most recent biological work."