This Primer is an attempt to explain in the most simple manner possible some of the most important and most general facts of Physiology, and may be looked upon as an introduction to the Elementary Lessons of Professor Huxley.

In my descriptions and explanations I have supposed the reader to be willing to handle and examine such things as a dead rabbit and a sheep’s heart; and written accordingly, I have done this purposely, from an increasing conviction that actual observation of structures is as necessary for the sound learning of even elementary physiology, as are actual experiments for chemistry. At the same time I have tried to make my text intelligible to those who think reading verbal descriptions less tiresome than observing things for themselves.

It seemed more desirable in so elementary a work to insist, even with repetition, on some few fundamental truths, than to attempt to skim over the whole wide field of Physiology. I have therefore omitted all that relates to the Senses and to the functions of the Nervous System, merely just referring to them in the concluding article. These the reader must study in the “Elementary Lessons.”

M. Foster.