Abstract: Textbooks are the base of teaching. The physiology textbooks used in higher medical education was compared between China and the United States. Guyton and Hall Textbook of Medical Physiology was chosen as the major representative of the United States. The overall framework, the selection and arrangement of the contents, the application of tables and pictures, and the relationship between basic medicine and clinical medicine were discussed. It is hopefully that this paper would provide some reference for reform in specialized course system and teaching contents of physiology, especially for improving the constructive quality of textbooks in the future.

Key words: Physiology, textbook, China, The United State, comparison