248 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



own judgment, to every variety of case that may occur, rather than 

 to be dependent in cases of difficulty on mere verbal knowledge 

 and ready-made rules of treatment, often more likely to be astray 

 than to the point, the author has studied in the following pages 

 to avoid as far as practicable, the hackneyed though time honored 

 style of many of those that have gone before him on the same sub- 

 ject. 



In treating of diseases, and the means of curing them, he has 

 studied more to explain the character of the deranged conditions 

 existing, to elucidate the physiological proceedingsby which recov- 

 ery is eftected, and to point out the most likely means of aiding 

 nature in her endeavors for the restoration of disordered structures 

 or functions, than to provide separate definitions and formula for 

 every variety of disease likely to occur. 



The author's aim has been in short, as regards the kind of infor- 

 mation he has tried to impart, rather to enable his readers to judge 

 correctly for themselves what they should do in any particular 

 case, than to supj^ly them with rules of practice for which the}' 

 could give no reason. Being convinced that where the first ptinci- 

 ples of treatment are understood, and a moderate amount of com- 

 mon sense exists to direct their application, there is a much better 

 chance of success, both in the prevention and cure of disease, than 

 there is without such knowledge, though possessed of all the "val- 

 uable receipts" and "infallible remedies" that the impudence or 

 avarice of designing charlatans have ever puflied into notoriety." 



