Abstract
IN this volume Prof. W. D. Halliburton “aims at presenting the main facts of modern physiology in, an elementary way and in language as free from technical terms as possible.” In a sense, he has succeeded in this aim. The facts are nearly all there, crowded into 167 pages of excellent and not very small type, with many illustrations, and the language is not obtrusively technical but has an appearance of simplicity. Technical language, however, is a species of shorthand, and in compressing into so small a space without its aid all that Prof. Halliburton considers main facts, there is an inevitable loss of real intelligibility. Without some rigorous selection a book of this size tends to become a succession of statements hardly assimilable by a mind not previously acquainted with the subject, and so of little educational value. Yet the work is obviously intended for students extremely junior, not so much in age as in knowledge. It is not, indeed, quite obvious what public the author seeks to reach, but perhaps we may be guided by such remarks as those on the “need for diligent use of the tooth-brush,... tooth-powders are not to be recommended,” and “it is hardly necessary for me to preach to readers the necessity for temperance in the use of alcohol.” The complete absence of any reference to the reproductive system of either sex—a remarkable omission in a scientific primer on physiology—may perhaps be also taken as an indication that here we have “popular” science of a I familiar kind.
Physiology.
By Prof. W. D. Halliburton (Dent's Scientific Primers. Edited by Dr. J. Reynolds Green, F.R.S.) Pp. xi + 176. (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., n.d.) Price 1s. net.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Physiology . Nature 89, 166 (1912). https://doi.org/10.1038/089166b0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/089166b0