Respiration I. [antikvár]

Preface The last twenty years have witnessed a great advance in the subject of respiration, and the time has now come when there is need for an authoritative compendium of information on the subject for the use of serious students of the field. Among these are graduate students, teachers and investigators, as well as many physicians who are applying the new knowledge of respiration to clinical problems. Indeed, much of the new information originated in the clinics themselves, which have contributed enormously to the physiology of the subject. Recognizing this widespread need, the Handbook Committee of the American Physiological Society planned Section 3 of this series to cover the subject of Respiration, and appointed the undersigned as editors. In the task of preparing these volumes, the editors have been assisted, in the first place, by a committee which held one two-day meeting in Philadelphia and made a tentative selection of chapter subjects and authors. Those who attended this meeting were R. E. Förster, Arthur B. DuBois, W. A. Briscoe, Ward Fowler, Jere Mead, and Arthur B. Otis, in addition to the two editors. Julius Comroe was unable to attend, but he accepted responsibility for organizing the chapters on the control of respiration and collected all the pertinent manuscripts (Chapters 19-26). The committee members were picked by the editors because of their qualifications as authors, and acceptance of membership on the committee really involved acceptance of the responsibility for at least one chapter. They cannot be accused, therefore, of selecting themselves as the best qualified authors. Dr. Fowler, unfortunately, had to request relief from the responsibility for a chapter because of health. Further meetings of the committee were not authorized, and the editors have had to take full responsibility for the editorial work. We have enjoyed, however, much generous advice and help from members of the committee, whenever they were called upon. Most of the routine business and letter writing has been conducted in the office of the Rochester editor, but frequent trips between Rochester and Buifalo have enabled us to share all the important decisions equally, and we have both read and commented upon all the manuscripts submitted. In general, volume I contains the more basic aspects of the subject and a rather thorough exposition of the fundamental principles concerned in respiration, with special emphasis on systems found in mammals. The second volume was designed to cover the more applied aspects of the subject, although many chapters, or parts of chapters, are included which perhaps could better have been placed in the first volume. There is certainly no implication that chapters in volume II are of any less importance tiian those in volume I. Of all the applications of respiratory physiology, the one that has advanced most in the last twenty years, and the one that is in most need of further study, is probably the application to diseases. Clinical studies have also contributed very greatly to the present knowledge concerning respiration. This Handbook obviously could not neglect this important field, but on the other hand it certainly does not claim to be a thorough exposition of the clinical treatment of respiratory diseases. With these ideas in mind, Drs. Briscoe and DuBois generously undertook the difficult task of organizing the more clinical chapters at the end of volume II. They are designed primarily to meet the needs of the physiologist who is not well oriented clinically, but it is hoped that they will be helpful to many clinicians as well. For this part of the book three types of chapters were planned: i) tests of function and their interpretations; 2) chapters on particular physiological functions, such as diffusing capacity, alveolar ventilation, lung volumes, etc., which are disturbed in a variety of pathological states; and 3) chapters on indi-