Begründer der experimentellen/Founders of experimental physiology [antikvár]

Preface We have brought together, in facsimile of their originál printing, somé landmarks of physiological thought from three centuries in time. To look backward and select men who have influenced the development of a particular science is an easier task than the assessment of one's contemporaries; the omission of names has been more difficult, since the richness of the past could easily have provided material for many volumes. The intellectual environment of the 17th century resisted change. The stable poli-tical and religious organizations of that time buffered the reach of scientific imagi-nation. The 18th century saw the beginning of the end of monarchy and theques-tioning of religious authority. But the ferment which erupted in the French Re-volution was already stirring in the minds of 17th century philosophers. Descartes and Borelli are examples of these pioneers. It is characteristic of the time that the major works of both appeared after their deaths. Both exerted a pro-found and continuing influence on scientific thought. Although neither experi-mented widely, they set the pattern of inductive analytical thinking which was to govern physiology for the succeeding centuries. Teleology has never recovered from Descartes' assault and his concept of the task of physiology as constructing the "little machines" of life processes was prophetic if not determinative. It was alsó the end in science of the energizing inhabitant of living things which, since Aristoteles, had been called the soul. The exerpt from the perceptive tract "L'Homme" is perhaps the first sensible description of responsive nervous activity. Sherrington, in "Man on His Nature" reminds us that Descartes described a priori the antagonism of skeletal muscular activity 250 years before it was proven in the laboratory. A like intuitíve genius inspired Borelli to write of transmitter substances at neuromuscular junctions. The section from Borelli's "De motu Animalium" is an example of the application of mechanical principles to living organism, astonishing for the lucidity of its presentation. It was Harvey, however, who finally cast off the restricting fetters of Galenic dogma. "By Hercules" he said, "it is not so!" Schooled at Padua in the exacting tradition of Vesalius he used the power of experimentál methods to unseat a model of the circulation of the blood established for fifteen hundred years. "De motu cordis" is given here in its entirety. Harvey opened the door; the rest have followed. Galvani transformed the concept of neuromuscular function. His painstaking experiments are legendary and his stubborn refusal to accept Volta's bimetal theory led him finally to prove an intrinsic bioelectricity, the basic principle of all subsequent neurophysiology. We include a delightful little paper of Helmholtz as a model of brevity and a reminder that when something is finally known it can be stated in a few words. Bernstein, a student of Helmholtz, first enunciated the theory of bioelectrical excitation in its modern form. This milestone in the history