Synopses & Reviews
This exciting volume offers a unique approach to respiratory physiology, examining the subject based upon fundamental biological, chemical, and physical principles. At each step, the book asks Does it make sense? This allows readers to understand not only how gas exchange works, but why, scientifically and logically, gas exchange must work as it does. This approach leads to important practical benefits, including: * A rational understanding of the bases of both physiological acclimation and respiratory theraputics. * Insight into what to expect when organisms respond to environmental or pathological challenges. * Improved ability to synthesize and explore relationships between what may otherwise seem to be unrelated functions. The insight into respiratory physiology provided by this important text has applications to a broad range of disciplines. Health professionals will find their ability to care for patients enhanced by their improved understanding of the functioning of gas exchange in the respiratory system. In addition, the book's thorough coverage provides direction for zoologists and physiologists interested in the development and function of animal respiratory systems.
Synopsis
Why write another small book on respiratory physiology? I have a dozen or so texts on my bookshelf that could already be used interchangeably to teach the subject. For profit, I might as well buy lottery tickets. Not that my publisher is ungenerous, you understand, it's just that the market is not that big and there are many contenders for a share. No, I write from the idealistic standpoint that I think I have something different to say, some- thing that is importantly different about how gas exchange works and with an approach that is different from other authors. With few changes, basically the same text or chapters on respiratory physiology have been written, by different authors, for decades. One could almost interchange the tables of contents of most of them. Most seem to have copied the figures and concepts used by the others. Few have done more than accept and perpetu- ate the conventional wisdom. In this text, I have attempted to start from fundamental principles of biology, chemistry, and physics and ask at each step, "Does it make sense?" The mechanisms and structures of gas exchange exist because, scientifically and logically, they "can't not be" as they are. The nature of our environment and the capabilities ofliving tissue are such that only certain opportunities have been available to the evolution of gas exchange.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 139-141) and index.
Table of Contents
Ground rules of gas exchange; Physical characteristics of respiratory gases and their media; Design of gas exchangers; Functional anatomy of the airways; Static and dynamic mechanics of the lung and chest wall; Ventilation and perfusion of the lung; Transport of oxygen in the blood; Oxygen transport in hypoxic conditions; Respiratory transport of carbon dioxide; Respiratory control of acid-base; Control of ventilation.