Main description:

First published in 1901, this volume contains ten lectures originally delivered as the 'Lane Lectures' by Sir Michael Foster at the Cooper Medical College in San Francisco. Examining the history of physiology from about the sixteenth to the end of the eighteenth century, the lectures consider the work and influence of key figures such as Vesalius, Harvey and Borelli, and chart the progress of scientific thought on matters such as digestion, respiration and the nervous system.

Contents:

1. Vesalius: his forerunners and followers; 2. Harvey and the circulation of the blood. The lacteals and lymphatics; 3. Borelli and the influence of the new physics; 4. Malpighi and the physiology of glands and tissues; 5. Van Helmont and the rise of chemical physiology; 6. Sylvius and his pupils. The physiology of digestion in the seventeenth century; 7. The English school of the seventeenth century. The physiology of respiration; 8. The physiology of digestion in the eighteenth century; 9. The rise of the modern doctrines of respiration. Black, Priestley, Lavoisier; 10. The older doctrines of the nervous system; Chronological table; Index.