PREFACE. 
A eruat variety of subjects being treated of in the 
following pages, it must follow that some of the facts 
and views therein mentioned have been previously 
described or suggested by others; but as the facts 
and views to which I allude are for the most part 
of a general character, and of dubious authority, | 
have thought it better to refrain from mentioning 
names in connexion with them, than to attribute their 
origin to wrong authors, especially as the mention of 
them here will not m any way interfere with the claim 
to priority of those with whom they originated. I may 
observe that a portion of the matter comprised in 
the following treatise has already appeared in the 
‘British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review ’ for 
October, 1857, and a portion in the ‘ Quarterly Journal 
