A course of elementary practical physiology / By M. Foster ... assisted by J.N. Langley.

  • Foster, M. (Michael), Sir, 1836-1907.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A course of elementary practical physiology / By M. Foster ... assisted by J.N. Langley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    part observations or experiments too difficult for the student to carry out for himself. A list of them is given merely in order that the student may know what he has to see. No- thing therefore is said about the manner of executing them; I may,- however, remark that none of them are painful, since they are of such a nature that anaesthetics where necessary can always be used. The woi'k marked out occupies my class the whole of two terms, i.e. from fifteen to eighteen weeks, the lectures being delivered twice weekly, and the practical work being carried on immediately after the lecture as well as on the interme- diate days. The plan of work, in fact, closely follows that of Prof. Huxley in his Elementary Biology. It is, of course, not necessary that all the details of each chapter should be worked over by each student. Practical work of this kind is only of value in so far as it suggests or corrects ideas. The student who has mounted an exquisitely thin and beautifully stained section, is only just so much the worse for his pains (as far as physiology is concerned), if he does not understand what the section means. Hence, when the features of some of the fundamental tissues and the general working of the more important mechanisms have been really learnt, and the student has got, by doing things for himself, to know the value of a physiological experiment and the pitfalls that are hidden under carmine and Canada balsam, he may be safely trusted to fill in the details of his study by means of refer- ence to mounted specimens and to mere demonstrations or even to descriptions of experiments. How much practical work is needed by each student must depend on a variety of