In the present monograph, Professor Monos brings together a lifetime of research experience and a consolidation of the literature specific to the physiology of the venous systems that can currently be found in no other place. He succinctly reveals the challenges and complexities of studying veins and their function (such as their elliptical shapes requiring more complex hemodynamics and many other issues), while explaining both the theoretical and practical aspects of venous function. Such an accomplished description by Professor Monos is presented with the great clarity and simplicity that could only be achieved after years of teaching this subject to medical and graduate students along with a deep understanding of venous function.

Professor Monos is to be congratulated for developing not only an authoritative booklet that will be of great interest to professional physiologists, but also an interesting and very readable text full of important examples of what happens in pathological states of venous dysfunction. The booklet is organized in a way that first presents the clinical relevance and manifestations of chronic venous disease and proceeds to developing the underlying structural and functional characteristics of veins and venules that determine the unique hemodynamic characteristics of venous pressures and flows and the regulation of these vessels. The functional relevance of the veins as they impact upon venous return of blood to the heart, and ultimately cardiac output control, is developed and the principles are used to explain how the veins participate to maintain the return of blood to the heart in the face of gravity in the upright (orthostatic) posture. The role of post-capillary venules in determining post-capillary resist ance and filtration/reabsorption within organs is briefly emphasized. The passive biomechanics of veins are covered in considerable depth given the great functional importance of these aspects of the venous circulation. As the monograph progresses, a wonderfully integrated and coherent description of venous function is developed from the subcellular levels to control mechanisms at organ and organism levels, from theoretical aspects of the biomechanics of veins to the practical aspects of maintaining normal venous function. The broad area related to the synthesis and function of bioactive substances in the venous walls and the role of these substances in controlling venous tone is nicely summarized. So too are the functions of veins in special regions of the body such as the facial vein (e.g. thermal regulation), intracranial veins (e.g. buffer function of intracranial pressure), the subcutaneous venous plexes (e.g. thermoregulation), the portal circulation), and veins of other regions.

In this preface I wish to emphasize the significance of a subject whose awareness has received inadequate attention in the medical literature. This well written monograph by Professor Monos simultaneously provides both an introduction to the subject of the physiology of veins, as well as a comprehensive review that will be of great interest to even experts in the field of cardiovascular physiology. Such a learned treatise on the veins fills an important gap in the current medical literature.