Physiologie der Haustiere
Wolfgang von Engelhardt and Gerhard Breves (Eds.)
Enke im Hippokrates Verlag GmbH Stuttgart 2000
ISBN 3-7773-1429-3
(German language)

Forty-six authors have contributed to this impressive 650-page volume. It has 29 chapters, ranging from cell physiology to biorhythms and animal protection, and with 466 illustrations and 78 tables, the work gives an excellent didactic impression. As the editors assert in the preface, this book is intended as a textbook for students rather than an encyclopaedia of physiology, and the generalist’s approach has been chosen throughout.

It would be easy – and unfair – to criticise the heterogeneity of the work. Physiology is dynamic anatomy, so to speak, and in its vast variety of phenomena nigh impossible to categorise. This explains the different levels of abstraction for some sections, for example when ‘Vitamins’ and ‘Physiology of lactation’ appear as adjacent chapters. From a veterinary scientist’s point of view, one may also disapprove of the relative weight assigned to some fields, if one considers present research impact. This is particularly manifest when a separate discipline, in casu immunology, is presented on a dozen pages, as a subsection of ‘Blood and Defense'. ISA Journal Citation Reports listings would show there are about twice as many scientific journals in immunology than in the entire field of physiology. Not all chapters, including this one, give suggestions for further reading. However, as said before, it was the editors’ intention to make a book for students, and for undergraduates it will be Ariadne’s thread through the labyrinth, showing different disciplines along the way. The book is also an excellent primer for the non-physiologist, who will be led to conclude that everything in animal science is physiology.

One special word of praise must be said about the presentation; although printing was done with just one colour in addition to black, the illustrations are lively, easily understood, and most of the boxed ‘one-liner’ statements encapsulate essentials of the pertinent paragraphs. This book is highly recommended for the German-speaking veterinary community. Translations into other languages are intended, some are already under way.

MCH