"Before learning how something works, one should know what it is for, and why it is important." This statement, prefacing one chapter, explains the author's philosophy of teaching and his motivation in preparing this textbook. The updated second edition is a concise compendium of the important principles and concepts of cardiovascular physiology. This field is almost too vast to be mastered in depth by a single individual, but the author has done it in an admirable manner, and in the excellent tradition of the famous Rochester (NY) school of physiology.
The book is divided into five sections, with appendixes containing tables of normal values and problems that should be solved by a student who has digested and comprehended the text. The first two sections deal with the principles of cardiac mechanics, electrophysiology, and hemodynamics; the third is concerned with exchanges between blood and tissues; the fourth, the most original, deals