FOUR QUESTIONS ON HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY

Four Questions on Human Physiology

Four Questions on Human Physiology

1. What is meant by the Term Homeostasis? Demonstrate The Mechanisms Through Which The Body Attempts To Maintain Blood Volume Homeostasis Following Significant Blood Loss.

The term homeostasis is a concept used to describe the tendency of living entities to maintain a stable, steady internal state despite change, disturbances, and variations in their external environments. Although its roots are found in the natural sciences, the concept has been used by social scientists to describe the tendency of social collectives—social systems, formal and informal organizations—to maintain their identities, in whole or in part, in the face of planned or unplanned change forces.

Butler (2003) mentions the word homeostasis is derived from two Greek words (homo: “same” and stasis: “state”). Its literal meaning is “same” or “steady state of being.” Both the idea and nominal concept have their roots in the field of physiology. The Frenchman Claude Bernard (1813-1878) was the first to articulate the idea of homeostasis. The term itself was later coined by Walter Cannon in 1932. Physiologists used homeostasis to describe the ability of the body to maintain a stable internal state despite environmental variations and disturbances (e.g., temperature changes in the environment). It is argued that this tendency toward the maintenance of a homeostatic or “steady state” of equilibrium is attributed to an ability of the human body to sense and adjust to environmental changes. Working in conjunction with the brain, the body is endowed with multiple feedback inhibition mechanisms that enable it to counteract those influences that would lead it toward disequilibrium. As a result, these mechanisms create for the body what is known as homeostatic stability (Butler, 2003).

With its reference to system change, stability, and maintenance, homeostasis is one of many concepts associated with systems theory. A system is any set or group of interrelated elements that when considered together constitute an identifiable entity in which a change in one part of the elements affects some or all of the elements of the system. Such systems may be natural (human body, the cell, the solar system, etc.) or man-made (a formal organization). Hence, the full conceptual import of homeostasis is realized as one considers its meaning in the context of (a) the logic of systems theory and (b) the relationship it shares with other key systems concepts (e.g., system, environment, inputs, outputs, cybernetics, feedback mechanisms, energy importation, entropy, equilibrium, equifinality).

Inspiration for the use of systems theory in the social sciences came from an attempt to establish parallels between physiological systems in medicine and social systems in the social sciences (Usunoff, 2006). As such, systems theory was the dominant paradigm in sociology in the 1950s and 1960s. Work in this area is associated with a group of social theorists centered around Talcott Parsons in sociology and David Easton in political science. Within this context, a social system is defined in terms of two or more social actors engaged in more or less stable interaction within a ...