130 Memoirs of Erawius Darw'uT, M, D. 



but this work was, after its full completion, kept by the 

 author another twenty long years, " that," as the Doctor 

 expresses himself in the preface, " by frequent revision, it 

 might be made more worthy the acceptance of the public.*' 

 Kvery year keeping on amending and altering something, he 

 was at last persuaded by his friends, and the alluring ofler of 

 a thousand pounds from Johnson the bookseller, to present 

 it in the year 1 794 to the world. " If/' says the learned and 

 ingenious author, «' I could expend another forty years in 

 the practice of medicine, I make no doubt I could bring this 

 work nearer perfection, and render it more worthy the atten- 

 tion oi philosophers ." — Preface to volume ii. 



It will be found by attention to the subject, that medicine, 

 as a science, is chiefly indebted to botanical physicians. 

 Only peruse the labours prior to the exertions of loiajjical 

 physicians, and the whole is a chaos ; and to such the world 

 owes that clearness, order, and precision, \yhich appear in 

 many medical writings of the present day. 



*' The purport of the following pages," says Dr. Darwin 

 in his preface, " is an endeavour- to reduce the facts belong- 

 ing to ANIMAL LIFE into clusses, orders, genera, and species', 

 and, by comparing them with each other, to unravel the the- 

 ory of diseases. It happened, perhaps unfortunately for the 

 inquirers into the knowledge of diseases, that other sciences 

 had received improvement previous to their own ; whence, 

 instead of comparing the properties belonging to animated 

 nature with each other, they, idly ingenious, busied them- 

 selves in attempting to explain the laws of life by those of 

 mechanism and chemistry ; they considered the body as an 

 hydraulic machine, and the fluids as parsing through a series 

 of chemical changes, forgetting that aniniafion was its es- 

 sential characteristic. 



" The great Creator of all things has infinitely diversified 

 the works of his hands, but has at the same time stamped a 

 certain similitude on the features of nature, that demon- 

 strates to us, that (he tchole is one family of one Parent. On 

 this similitiide is founded all National analogy ; which, so 

 long as it is concerned in comparing the essential properties 

 of bodies, leads us to many and important discoveries j but 



when 



