This article is only available in the PDF format. Download the PDF to view the article, as well as its associated figures and tables.
In preparing the fifteenth edition of this classic American text, the editor has enlisted the collaboration of a group of associate editors, each responsible for one of the ten sections of the book. Each of them has secured various contributors for different portions of the text. In a field such as physiology, in which additional factual knowledge is being accumulated so rapidly and in which viewpoints, of necessity, must change, it is a difficult or impossible task for one person to present a picture in clear perspective. In his organization of the task before him, Dr. Fulton has succeeded in carrying out Dr. Howell's guiding principle as stated in the previous edition—"First, the importance of simplicity and lucidity in the presentation of facts and theories, and, second, the need of a judicious limitation of the material selected." Both objectives have been attained in the preparation of a ready reference text