TO 



WILLIAM PULTENEY ALISON, 



M.D., F.R.S.E., &c. &c. 



PROFESSOR OF THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 



MY DEAR SIR, 



I take the liberty of inscribing the following Work to you, as an ex- 

 pression of my grateful remembrance of the value of your instructions, 

 of my respect for those intellectual faculties which render you pre-emi- 

 nent amongst the Medical Philosophers of our time, and of my admira- 

 tion for those moral excellencies which call forth the warm regard of all 

 who are acquainted with your character. 



In many parts of this Treatise, you will find that doctrines, which you 

 have long upheld in opposition to almost the whole Physiological world, 

 are defended with such resources as I could command; and that, in 

 many instances, such convincing evidence of their truth has been afforded 

 by recent observations, that further opposition to them would now seem 

 vain. And if I have presumed to differ from you on some points, it has 

 been in the spirit of that independence which you have uniformly encou- 

 raged in your pupils; yet with a distrust of my own judgment, w : herever 

 it came into collision with yours. 



That you may long be spared to be the ornament of your University, 

 and the honour of your City, is the earnest wish of, 



Dear Sir, 



Your obliged Pupil, 



WILLIAM B. CARPENTER. 



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