This monograph focuses on splanchnic function in health and disease. It
represents a distillate of the communication that took place at the
First International Symposium of Applied Physiol- ogy of the Peripheral
Circulation, "Splanchnic Circulation: No Longer a Silent Partner." The
individual chapters roughly follow the individual presentations and
display in durable form the con- cepts and importance that this
symposium achieved. The concept for this annual symposium was the child
of An- tonio Artigas, who not only recruited sponsorship but also Jean-
Francois Dhainaut and me to help with the organization and work. We
chose the splanchnic circulation as the peripheral cir- culatory system
to be presented first for many important reasons. Much new information
has become available which demon- strates, as the title of the symposium
implies, that splanchnic function has major influence on the overall
expression of health and disease in humans. All aspects of splanchnic
physiology, it seems, have been rediscovered to be dynamic, important,
and complex in their interactions within individual tissues and among
remote tissues and organs. It is hoped that after having reviewed this
monograph the reader will agree that the splanchnic circula- tion and
its organ systems are emerging as important aspects of critical illness
and host-defense homeostasis.