Physiology of Finfish and Shellfish (2+1)

1.1.1. Physiology- Origin of the world and the study

“PHYSIOLOGY – Origin of the world and the study

The word “physiology” was first used By Greeks around 600 BC to describe a philosophical enquiry into the nature of things (physiology from the Greek word “physis” meaning nature) This meaning of physiology is altogether different from what it is today. Over the passage of time the word was restricted to describe enquiry into living things and several concepts were propound by man. Most of the early concepts were on human physiology because of necessity rather than curiosity but most of these concepts were misconceptions and are contrary to that of modern physiology. This was realized after the discoveries that were made gradually after several centuries later. For eg, the discovery of blood circulation by William Harvey in 1628 led to the correction of the earlier belief that animal bodies are filled with stationary blood and the various organ are suspended in it. Till the 18^th century, the concept and discoveries of physiology were treated only as anatomical that is, these were considered to be only in 19^th century Physiology began to develop as a distinct discipline. The discovery of C. Bernad(1813 – 78) who is considered to be one of the founder of Physiology in another milestone in the development of Physiology. He recognized cells as functional unit of life and developed the concept of blood and body fluids as the internal environment of which cells carry out their activities. Such discoveries, this has led to advancement of the discipline physiology to today’s level

Physiology may be defined as the branch of biology that deals with life process. Life process that essential to be performed by an organism in order to maintain life are nutrition, (feeding and digestion), respiration, transport of materials within the body (circulation), excretion, muscle movement, information transfer etc.