vi PREFACE. 



making of my task a labour of love, I had soon completed a 

 new translation of the Exercises on the Heart and Blood, 

 with equal pleasure and profit to myself. 



The work on GENERATION came next under review. The 

 English version of this I had heard it positively asserted was 

 the original, was Harvey's own ; here therefore my business of 

 editor would properly begin. But I had not gone through 

 a couple of pages of the text, before difficulties like those 

 already experienced met me again. That the statement 

 above referred to was erroneous, speedily became apparent ; 

 and a little inquiry enabled me to discover that the English 

 version of the Exercises on Generation was the work of a 

 physician named Llewellen. Though not incorrect generally, 

 there was, nevertheless, a great deal that I wished had been 

 otherwise rendered; and then the scientific and professional 

 language of two centuries back looked strangely when exa- 

 mined by the eye, and had an unusual sound when tried upon 

 the ear. Only anxious to present to my brethren in the most 

 appropriate and attractive form possible, the writings of him 

 who had still met me in his Works and with his contem- 

 plative look in his Portrait as a kind of divinity in medicine, 

 I even girded myself up for the long and laborious enter- 

 prise of translating anew into our mother tongue the work 

 on Generation, and at length achieved my task, not without 

 difficulty. 



The short paper on the ANATOMY of THOMAS PARR appears 

 in the Philosophical Transactions in English ; but it stands 

 there as a translation; and having now translated so much 

 myself, I even thought it would be well to translate that also, 

 and so it was achieved. 



The LETTERS, though frequently quoted, have never ap- 



