A first-hand account by the international participants of the past 75 years’ advancements in thermophysiology is forthcoming

The past 60 years have witnessed remarkable advances in our understanding of the mechanisms that control body temperature, but except for brief historical background chapters occasionally included in didactic monographs and symposia proceedings, no book, to my best knowledge, has yet been published on the “makers” of thermal physiology. Thermal physiology is an integrative science, and this is what makes the field so fascinating and its history so engrossing. Indeed, when I entered the field as a graduate student in 1954, it was a popular area of research among scientists of all stripes cardiovascular, respiratory, musculo-skeletal, nervous, endocrine and other physiologists as well as biochemists, biophysicists, and psychologists all contributing their expertise toward elucidating the role of their particular specialty in controlling body temperature. Their interest was, in part, a continuation of their then still recent wartime experiences when many had served in military laboratories studying the effects of harsh environments on soldiers’ performance. I had the privilege of knowing personally most of the principal players both in the USA and abroad—many sadly now gone—over my 60 years in the field and I recall reasonably well the various steps of our journey of discovery. Right now seemed to me, therefore, an opportune time to recapitulate the history of thermal physiology for the benefit of those among the current generation of workers in all disciplines now involved in our field as well as of others who may be interested in learning about the research that has led to our current knowledge of how the body maintains its temperature. I felt reasonably safe that I could recount with adequate authority and authenticity the American contribution to this history. But my contemporaries in the UK, Germany, Japan, etc. have naturally had closer and more continuous relationships with their own compatriots and, therefore, can reflect on them with greater authority than I. Those that I approached have graciously agreed to be contributors to this history. This book is not meant to be a definitive, exhaustive treatise of the worldwide history of temperature regulation research since its beginning, but rather a personal recounting of, in particular, the people who contributed to its development, told from the memory and subjective perspective of witnesses to it who, moreover, were themselves major participants. That is to say, this book will present the global history of thermal physiology not as a dry recompilation of already well known, published facts, but rather as a lively account from the personal, almost autobiographical viewpoint of the invited contributors, so that not only the important contributions of the scientists that will be recalled may be highlighted, but also so that some insight into their persona and how they thought and worked may be gained. Several of the chapters are already in; they are written in the unique style and from the personal experience of their authors (please see Table 1). The remaining chapters are expected later this summer and early fall. The expected publication date of the book is early 2015. Its tentative title will be “Thermal Physiology: a worldwide history.” The publisher will be Springer-NY. It will be the 8th volume in the American Physiological Society’s (APS) series titled “Perspectives in Physiology” (formerly “People and Ideas”) “that seeks to place medical science inside a greater historical A first-hand account by the international participants of the past 75 years’ advancements in thermophysiology is forthcoming