Respiration [electronic resource] / by J.S. Haldane.

New Haven : Yale University Press, 1922.

xviii, 427 p., plates : ill. ; 24 cm.

Access is available to the Yale community.

Electronic reproduction. Washington, D.C. : American Psychological Association, 2012. Available via World Wide Web. Access limited by licensing agreement.

Access restricted by licensing agreement.

"The mechanistic theory of life is now outworn and must soon take its place in history as a passing phase in the development of biology. But physiology will not go back to the vitalism which was threatening to strangle it, and from which it escaped last century. The real lesson of the movement of that time will never be lost. The book belongs to a transition period, but the transition is forward and not backward. My treatment of the subject may possibly be looked on askance in some quarters as reactionary: for I have been largely influenced by the ideas and work of older physiologists. If, however, I have gone backward, it is only to pick up clues which had been temporarily lost; and all of these clues lead forward--forward to a new physiology which embodies what was really implicit in the old. The leaders of the mechanistic movement of last century got rid of vitalism, but in doing so got rid of life itself. I have tried to paint a picture of the body as alive. Though the picture is imperfect, others will soon paint it more completely. The time has come for a far more clear realization of what life implies. The bondage of biology to the physical sciences has lasted more than half a century. It is now time for biology to take her rightful place as an exact independent science: to speak her own language, and not that of other sciences. The endeavor to represent the facts of physiology as if they would fit into the general scheme of a mechanistic biology has led, it seems to me, to the present estrangement between physiology and medicine. Since the time of Hippocrates the growth of scientific medicine has in reality been based on the study of the manner in which what he called the 'nature' of the living body expresses itself in response to changes in environment, and reasserts itself in face of disturbance and injury. The underlying assumption is that organic regulation and maintenance represent something very real, and that only through the study of it can we recognize and interpret disturbance of health, and effectively aid maintenance or restoration of health. I have endeavored to return to what seems to me the truly scientific Greek tradition, and to give it a form which is not only consistent with modern science and philosophy, but brings physiology and medicine into that close and special relation indicated by the common etymology of the words 'physician' and 'physiology.' Most of the investigations specially referred to in the book have been carried out on man. It was only by human experiments that the almost incredible delicacy of the regulation of breathing was discovered; and human experiments have revealed to us in other ways how rough many of the experiments on animals, or on 'preparations' from the bodies of animals, have been. Organic regulation, with its all-important relations to practical medicine and surgery, was often entirely overlooked. I hope that the book may contribute towards establishing human physiology in its rightful place, which has been usurped too long by experiments on fragments of frogs and other animals, or on the mere superficial physical and chemical aspects of bodily activity"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

PsycBooks.

Original

Books / Online

English

February 04, 2013