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 worthv to be ranked amongst the most 

 important steps by which the science of physiology has ever 

 been advanced. The Royal Society of London has evinced 

 its sense of the great merit of the work by awarding to its 

 Author the Copley Medal 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 Cell-Theory ; 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 



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