vi TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE. 
Council is m no degree responsible for its tardy appearance ; 
when, nearly three years since, the Council did me the honour 
to accept an offer on my part to present to the Society a 
translation of Professor Schwann’s treatise, I fully hoped to 
have proceeded with so pleasing a labour without interruption 
or hinderance; but various unforeseen circumstances, both of a 
professional and domestic nature, have occurred to prevent the 
accomplishment of my object until the present moment. 
I am greatly indebted to the Author for the labour which 
he has expended in revising his work for this translation. 
Amongst the most important advantages which this edition 
has derived from his revision, I may mention the addition of 
many notes illustrative of the text, and the amalgamation of 
the two papers on Cartilage and Ossification, which, as they 
were originally written and printed at a considerable interval 
of time, led to some difficulty in the comprehension of the 
Author’s precise views on that subject; and that cireum- 
stance is also to be received as explanatory of the appearance 
of some of the delineations of Cartilage in Plate III. It was 
originally intended to have added notes, which should bring 
down the history of the subject to the period of publication, 
but it was found that they would form a mass of material 
almost as large as the original text, and the idea was therefore 
abandoned. 
In order that the reader might be in possession of the whole 
of the evidence upon which the Cell-Theory was originally 
based, I have appended a translation of Dr. ScurzipEn’s 
Monograph so frequently referred to by our Author. 
