k. \bm-w 



TO 



WILLIAM PULTENEY ALISON, 



M.D., F.R.S.E. Ac. &c. 



PROFESSOR OP THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 



MY DEAR SIR, 



I take the liberty of inscribing the following Work to you, as an 

 expression of my grateful remembrance of the value of your instruc- 

 tions, of my respect for those Intellectual faculties which render you 

 pre-eminent amongst the Medical Philosophers of our time, and of my 

 admiration for those Moral excellencies which call forth the warm re- 

 gard of all who are acquainted with your character. 



In many parts of this Treatise, you will find that doctrines, which 

 you have long upheld in opposition to almost the whole Physiological 

 world, are defended with such resources as I could command ; and that, 

 in many instances, such convincing evidence of their truth has been 

 afforded by recent observations, that further opposition to them would 

 now seem vain. And if I have presumed to differ from you on some 

 points, it has been in the spirit of that independence, which you have 

 uniformly encouraged in your pupils ; yet with a distrust of my own 

 judgment, wherever it came into collision with yours. 



That you may long be spared to be the ornament of your University, 

 and the honor of your City, is the earnest wish of, 



Dear Sir, 



Your obliged Pupil, 



WILLIAM B. CARPENTER. 



