Basic sciences at one time were regarded as subjects unrelated to clinical medicine; they were taught early in medical schools only to be forgotten during clinical training. Physiology gradually crept into clinical thinking, with pioneering texts relating physiological facts to clinical medicine written by Carl Wiggers, Samson Wright, and then Best and Taylor. In cardiology, the last two decades have seen a complete integration of physiology into everyday clinical activity. Today's electrocardiography requires knowledge of electrophysiological principles; cardiac catheterization and cardiovascular surgery, a thorough understanding of hemodynamics; and coronary disease, a knowledge of fluid dynamics.
The practicing physician is constantly exposed to physiological reasoning in his diagnostic and therapeutic thinking when he attends the various forms of continuing education. Those who wish to review their knowledge by means of self-assessment tests recognize the need for a sound base in physiology.
Thus, a textbook of cardiovascular physiology is no longer