xii PREFACE 



symmetry should be preserved and that there should 

 be no retardation of the general progress ; for example, 

 physiology is shooting ahead of anatomy ; pathology is 

 fast overtaking physiology, and some of the later develop- 

 ments, such as bacteriology and hygiene, threaten to 

 overrun and asphyxiate the foundation sciences from 

 which they have sprung, and on which they still rely 

 for support and encouragement. 



The following pages, regarded as a contribution towards 

 the rectification of this disproportionate progress, will, we 

 hope, not be without some slight value, and, at any rate, 

 that they will justify their submission to the republic 

 of Science as an example of an always needed effort 

 to widen and deepen the foundation of the great struc- 

 ture of knowledge biological, medical, and metaphysical. 



These ' Extracts from the Diary of a Medical 

 Practitioner' were not originally intended for publication. 

 They consequently bear no impress of effort at continuity 

 of detail or treatment, or of closely reasoned and con- 

 secutive arrangement of subject, but have been grouped 

 or classified and loosely thrown together somewhat in 

 the chronological order of that original production, and 

 as one subject suggested another, in easy and irregular 

 sequence, during the course of many years. 



Constituting thus but a series of fragments of asym- 

 metrical proportions, and differing much in their degree 

 of elaboration, they nevertheless lend themselves to a 

 ' mosaic arrangement ' and f scientific disposition ' in such 

 a manner that a { definite pattern ' may become the 

 ultimate result. 



The bibliography involved in their production and 

 elaboration, and the assignment of indebtedness for sug- 

 gestions and ideas are now, we regret to say, impossible 

 tasks, inasmuch as the 'weft and the woof of their 

 texture have been the product of daily reading, observa- 



