What is Physiology?
Physiology is an area of study of biology responsible for analyzing the physical, organic, mechanical and biochemical functioning of living beings.
The term physiology originated from the junction of the Greek physis, which means “functioning” or “nature”, with the word logos, which means “study” or “knowledge”.
Thus, the meaning of physiology would be “knowledge of nature” or “study of functionings”.
In short, physiology is the study of the functions of living organisms, whether in the animal kingdom or the plant kingdom.
The first studies on the “functioning of organisms” date back to Ancient Greece, but it was not until the 16th century that modern physiology began to take shape.
Prominent names for this branch were Andreas Versalius (1514 – 1564) and William Harvey (1578 – 1657).
For this, the study of physiology is subdivided into animal physiology and plant physiology. There is still “bacterial physiology”, however it does not have as much prominence as the other branches of analysis.
Human physiology
Human physiology is dedicated to the study of the functioning of the human organism.
This is a branch that branches off from animal physiology, responsible for analyzing and understanding all the functions of organisms in the animal kingdom.
Human physiology involves studies on blood circulation, digestive system, embryology, respiratory system, endocrine and so on.
Anatomy
It is a branch that is dedicated to the macroscopic and microscopic study of all the physical structures of living beings, such as their shape and arrangement of organs, for example.
List of Acronyms Related to Physiology
