Hion

This book comes from decades of teaching physiological principles to advanced undergraduates, graduate students and medical students. It has been written for those who are dissatisfied with the just good-enough analyses for examining acid-base status. The information it contains, though, is not new. The physical chemical and biochemical fundamentals it quotes have been known for years. Why, then, has a book like this one not appeared before? There are several reasons, most of which bear on the unavoidably reductionist quality of information in the basic sciences.

HION compiles the more pertinent concepts found only in the original scientific literature into an easily read, accurate and internally consistent story of how the body’s hydrogen ion concentration is established. It is more a translation and interpretation of the existing scientific literature than it is a contribution to it. Just reviewing the book’s main physiological, biomedical and clinical information gives a much more detailed, integrated and useful basis for understanding acid-base status, than does reading any contemporary textbook.