Human Anatomy & Physiology

Book Preface

As educators we continually make judgments about the enormous amount of information that besets us daily, so we can choose which morsels to pass on to our students. Yet even this refined information avalanche challenges the learning student’s mind. What can we do to help students apply the concepts they are faced with in our classrooms? We believe that this new edition of our textbook addresses that question by building on the strengths of previous editions while using new, innovative ways to help students visualize connections between various concepts.

Unifying Themes

Three unifying themes that have helped to organize and set the tone of this textbook continue to be valid and are retained in this edition. These themes are: Interrelationships of body organ systems. This theme emphasizes the fact that nearly all regulatory mechanisms have interactions with several organ systems. The respiratory system, for example, cannot carry out its role of gas exchange in the body if there are problems with the cardiovascular system that prevent the normal delivery of blood throughout the body. The unique System Connections feature is a culmination of this approach and helps the student think of the body as a community of dynamic parts instead of a number of independent units. Homeostasis. Homeostasis is the normal and most desirable condition of the body. Its loss is always associated with past or present pathology. This theme is not included to emphasize pathological conditions but rather to illustrate what happens in the body when homeostasis is lost.

Whenever students see a red balance beam symbol accompanied by an associated clinical topic, their understanding of how the body works to stay in balance is reinforced. Complementarity of structure and function. This theme encourages students to understand the structure of some bodily part (cell, bone, lung, etc.) in order to understand the function of that structure. For example, muscle cells can produce movement because they are contractile cells.

Changes Past and Present

Many of the changes made to the 9th edition have been retained and are reinforced in this 10th edition.
• There are more step-by-step blue texts accompanying certain pieces of art (blue text refers to the instructor’s voice).
• The many clinical features of the book have been clearly identified to help students understand why this material is important.
• The “Check Your Understanding” questions at the end of each module reinforce understanding throughout the chapter.
• We have improved a number of our Focus Figures. (Focus Figures are illustrations that use a “big picture” layout and dramatic art to walk the student through difficult processes in a step-by-step way.)
• MasteringA&P continues to provide text-integrated media of many types to aid learning. These include Interactive Physiology (IP) tutorials that help students to grasp difficult concepts, A&PFlix animations that help students visualize tough A&P topics, and the PAL (Practice Anatomy Lab) collection of virtual anatomy study and practice tools focusing on the most widely used lab specimens. These are by no means all of the helpful tools to which students have access. It’s just a smattering.