Respiration

Abstract

Limitation of space dictates that I omit several topics from this review; among these are pulmonary pathophysiology and pulmonary function testing; cell respiration; pharmacology of respiration; adaptation to long term environmental changes; and comparative physiology, either of inter species variation or of variation within the individual related to age and stage of development. These topics are included in a longer bibliography. 2 BOOKS, REVIEWS, CONFERENCESRespiration physiologists now have their own, eponymously titled jour nal (l).It has been a good year for books: Aviado's account of the pulmonary circulation (2) , that must for a long time be the definitive work in this field; Keilin's History of Cell Respiration and Cytochrome (3), completed for the press by his daughter after his death; Volume II of Section 3 (Res piration) of the American Physiological Society's Handbook of Physiology (4); Farhi's literarily and s�ientifically admirable translation into English of Dejour's chapter in Volume III of the French textbook Physiologie (C.Kayser, Ed.), now published as the book Respiration (5) ; a collection of re views (6) of recent progress in their fields, by eight active research work ers; an account of the principles, practice, and interpretation of cl inical pulmonary function tests (7); a simple exposition and discussion of the concept of inhomogeneity of distribution of ventilation and blood flow (8); a somewhat sketchy account of the comparative anatomy, histology, and physiology of respiration throughout the animal kingdom (9) ; and a gener