Introduction to Physiology
Introduction to Physiology & Its Importance
Physiology is study of how organ systems, organs, and cells work under normal healthy conditions.
To understand the function of organs we need to learn their structure (i.e. anatomy, histology, etc) first.
Only after understanding how normal body works, we can understand how abnormalities are produced (pathology, microbiology, etc), and how medicines help restore normal conditions back (pharmacology).
The boundary of physiology is blur and it overlaps with other fields, for example, molecular biology.
General vs Systemic Physiology
In general physiology, we study the processes that are common to all cells or most of the cells in the body. Thus, general physiology builds the foundation on which we can learn systemic physiology.
In systemic physiology, we learn how special functions are performed by individual organ systems.