To study physiology 60 years ago was an experience greatly different from that met by students now. Most days were spent in the laboratory with an isolated tissue, or an insentient animal preparation, or a human subject. Such rich first-hand experience brought many rewards: above all it ensured that the many discoveries one had not repeated oneself, or seen demonstrated, could be realistically envisaged. Today’s students are adept at interpreting the virtual world to which they have been exposed from infancy. That aptitude and the wealth of illustrative and often challenging didactic material nowadays available in the virtual setting can help to stretch imagination and develop intellectual prowess. But without engagement of all faculties, as in truly experiential learning, the education thus acquired and its usefulness in the real world remains limited. To mitigate this deficit and to re-establish a cadre with the skills necessary for continued essential research in integrative mammalian physiology, several departments have started to offer appropriately regulated courses in integrative mammalian physiology for selected students at the post-graduate level. The majority of medical students in the UK, however, remain starved of experiential learning of physiology. Symptomatic is the draft curriculum recently floated by a working party of the Society. Laudably, it includes under each heading items that might be suitable for constructing scenarios for problem-based learning. But, so far, indications of suitable practical work are conspicuously absent. Yet even in today’s straitened circumstances, a wide range of significant observations and experiments, especially on human subjects – many requiring little equipment and open to quantitative refinement – can serve to develop the real-world skills and investigative curiosity which can be fostered by the study of physiology.