Essays on the History of Respiratory Physiology [Hardcover]

This book consists of 23 essays about prominent people and events in the history of respiratory physiology.?It?provides a?first-hand chronicle of the advancements made in respiratory physiology starting with Galen and the beginnings of Western physiology. The volume covers every aspect of the evolution of this important area of knowledge: pulmonary circulation, Boyles Law, pulmonary capillaries and alveoli, morphology, gas exchange and blood flow, mechanics, control of ventilation, and comparative physiology. The book emphasizes societal and philosophical aspects of the history of science. Although it concentrates on physiology, it also describes how cultural movements, such as The Enlightenment, shaped the researchers discussed.

This book is published on behalf of the American Physiological Society by Springer. Access to APS books published with Springer is free to APS members.

?1. Galen and the beginnings of Western physiology
? 2. Ibn al-Nafis, the pulmonary circulation, and the Islamic Golden ?Age
? 3. Torricelli and the ocean of air: the first measurement of ?barometric pressure
? 4. Robert Boyles landmark book of 1660 with the first experiments ?on rarified air
? 5. The original presentation of Boyle's Law
? 6. Robert Hooke: Early respiratory physiologist, polymath, and ?mechanical genius
? 7. Marcello Malpighi and the discovery of the pulmonary capillaries ?and alveoli
? 8. Stephen Hales: neglected respiratory physiologist
? 9. Joseph Black, carbon dioxide, latent heat, and the beginnings of ?the discovery of the respiratory gases
? 10. Carl Wilhelm Scheele, the discoverer of oxygen, and a very ?productive chemist
? 11. Joseph Priestley, oxygen, and the Enlightenment
? 12. The collaboration of Antoine and Marie-Anne Lavoisier and the ?first measurements of human oxygen consumption
? 13. Henry Cavendish, hydrogen,l³(