Levick - An Introduction to Cardiovascular Physiology

This is an introductory text designed primarily for students of medicine and physiology. The teaching style is necessarily didactic in many places (The way it works is like this, ) but also, where space permits, I have tried to show how our knowledge of the circulation is derived from experimental observations. The latter not only puts flesh on the didactic bones, but ultimately keep the student (and the writer) in contact with reality. Human data are presented where possible, and their relevance to human disease is emphasized. The occasional anecdotes and doggerel betray a deplorable levity on my part, but will have earned their place if they interest the reader, and doubly so if they help to make a point memorable. The undergraduate will find a useful guide to learning objectives in the coloured box at the beginning of each chapter.

The traditional weighting of subject matter has been re-thought, resulting in a fuller account of microvascular physiology than is usual. This reflects the explosion of microvascular research over the past two decad-des. Even setting aside these advances, it seems self-evident that the culminating, fundamental function of the cardiovascular system the transfer of nutrients from plasma to the tissue merits more than the few lines usually accorded to it in introductory texts. Major advances continue apace in other fields too, for example the elucidation of the biochemical events underlying Starlings law of the heart, the discovery of new vasoactive substances produced by endothelium, the exploration of non-adrenergic, non-cholinergic neurotransmission, rapid advances in vascular smooth muscle physiology, and new concepts on how the central nervous control of the circulation is organized.

I would like to thank many friends and colleagues Tom Bolton, John Gamble, Max Lab, William Large, Janice Marshall, Charles Michel, Mark Noble, Peter Simkin, Laurence Smaje, Mike Spyer and John Widdicombe for helpful comments on sections of the text. Any mistakes or muddles that remain are, of course, entirely my own; please do not hesitate to point them out to me. Perhaps I should thank the cardiovascular system too, for proving to be even more fascinating than I had realized before writing this book!

Rodney Levick, St. Georges Hospital Medical School