This site is an on-line virtual museum exhibit. It includes video, audio and text information about human cardiac physiology. The quality of the Franklin Institute material is excellent. It may take a while to load some of the graphics. Different sections include heart development, structure, blood flow and the structure of blood vessels, brief descriptions of lung and kidney function, and the role of circulation in those organs, information on cardiac pathologies like hypertension, and information on maintaining cardiac health.
Many sections have links to other web sites of interest in the area of cardiac biology.
The site does not contain as much detail as a biology textbook, but provides a great review of the major features of cardiovascular structure and function. This site was created and is maintained by the Franklin Institute, a non-profit organization based in Philadelphia. This is the home page of Dr. Paul Licht, a comparative endocrinologist at the University of California at Berkeley. Licht's research as mostly focused on reptiles, amphibians and hyenas as study animals. A page of selected recent publications provides information on thyroxine binding proteins in turtles, and the unusual reproductive endocrinology of spotted hyenas, together with discussion of the resulting unusual features of hyena reproductive anatomy and behavior.