LATE P. A. SURGEON, U. S. NAVY PHYSICIAN TO BROOKLYN CITY HOSPITAL.

NUNQUAM

OL

TENTES

New York:

BAILLIERE BROTHERS, 440 BROADWAY.

LONDON:-H. BAILLIERE, 219 REGENT STREET.

PARIS:-J. B. BAILLIERE ET FILS. MADRID :-C. BAILLY-BAILLIERE.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by

BAILLIERE BROTHERS,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

THOMAS HOLMAN, PRINTER, Corner of Centre and White Streets, N. Y.

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PREFACE.

THIS book is offered to amateur readers and teachers of Natural Science under its proper title.

I coincide with the great majority of Physicians, and many Teachers who have tried it, that it is impracticable to so abridge Human Physiology as to render it entertaining to the general reader or comprehensible to the academic student.

Physiology comprehends the history of all living things, and Human Physiology is the highest point of that Science, because it is the history of the most complex of all living beings.

All Sciences have their rudiments, and as well might we undertake to acquire a knowledge of the higher branches of mathematics without first studying arithmetic, or reading without knowing the letters, as Human Physiology without that knowledge which constitutes the rudiments of life.

If we would have a simple Physiology, it must be the Physiology of a simple organism-an organism which consists of but few parts, and whose life is

maintained by simple processes; and if we would extend this knowledge, we must do it in the same manner as we pursue other sciences-proceed step by step from the lower to the higher branches. Such knowledge as this constitutes the RUDIMENTS OF PHYSIOLOGY.

The circumstances which have led to this book, were in the first place dependent upon a fondness for physiological studies; secondly, an abundant opportunity in various climates to promote those studies; and thirdly, a desire to inculcate that knowledge of living things which is of utility in all departments of human industry. My first effort to inculcate this knowledge was in a course of lectures on Physiology and Hygiene, first delivered a little more than a year ago at the Packer Collegiate Institute of this city. The immediate inducement to compile a book from those lectures, has been brought about by the desire of some of the eminent teachers who heard them.

In submitting my manuscript to the Publishers, they wisely decided that to print it with fac-simile drawings from those used at my lectures, might make it a work for connoisseurs, but the expense of the plates would destroy its prospect for extensive reading and for academic instruction. They therefore suggested that it would be best to replace some of the drawings by figures selected from the finely illustrated works on their shelves. Selections were made from the latest London Editions of Carpenter's Comparative Physi ology; T. Rymer Jones' Natural History of Animals;