TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE. 
Any attempt on my part by way of introduction or com- 
mendation of Professor Schwann’s work, must, I feel, be 
altogether misplaced and unnecessary. The treatise has now 
been seven years before the public, has been most acutely in- 
vestigated by those best competent to test its value, and the 
first physiologists of our day have judged the discoveries 
which it unfolds as worthy to be ranked amongst the most 
important steps by which the science of physiology has ever 
been advanced. The Roya Socizty or Lonpon has evinced 
its sense of the great merit of the work by awarding to its 
Author the Coprey Mepat for the year 1845. The exten- 
sive reputation and fully-acknowledged value of the original 
work, then, forbid my presuming that any one of my readers 
can be altogether unacquainted with it and the general 
outlines of the Crrti-THrory; I may, however, I trust, be 
permitted to add a few words respecting the edition which is 
now presented to the Subscribers of the Sydenham Society. 
In the first place, I desire to tender my most unfeigned 
and unreserved apologies to the Council and Subscribers of 
the Society for the delay which has occurred in the issuing 
of this translation, and to assure the latter body that their 
b 
