The Body at Work

Few subjects are as well provided with text-books as physiology; yet it may be doubted whether the interests of the amateur of science have been adequately cared for. From his point of view there are certain obvious drawbacks to even the most admirable of text-books. Writing for medical students, their authors assume that their readers have passed through two years of preliminary training in physics, chemistry, and biology; they take for granted that they will have the privilege of supplementing their study of the theory of physiology with practical work in a laboratory; they treat all parts of the subject with equal thoroughness. In this book I have endeavoured to describe the phenomena of life, and the principal conclusions which have been drawn as to their interdependence and as to their causes, in language which will be understood by persons unacquainted with the sciences upon which physiology is based.