Sectionalization

Abstract

Many physiologists would give as a second definition of their field the one applied by G. N. Lewis to physical chemistry: “That branch of science which includes everything that is interesting and excludes everything that is uninteresting.” Such a definition implies a wide array of intellectually appealing subject matter, which in physiology is certainly self-evident to the practitioners. As the major organization in the United States representing the field, the American Physiological Society (APS, the Society) embraces many of the diverse areas understood by the word “physiology.” From an organismic point of view, however, it is largely concerned with the physiology of vertebrates; invertebrates tend to be viewed mostly as model systems, although not invariably so (see below). Plants and microbes are almost totally neglected. Nevertheless vertebrate, and especially mammalian, physiology covers a very broad spectrum of science from the molecular biology of cells to behavior of whole animals, and all this is accommodated by the Society.