PREFACE. VU 



only be regulated by the hand of a mechanician in- 

 timately acquainted with its minutest structure, 

 and with the particular uses and manner of hand- 

 ling the several instruments necessary to rectify 

 whatever derangement may have accidentally be- 

 fallen it. It would also materially conduce to 

 destroy the predilection of the public mind for 

 quacks and quackery : for who that knows any 

 thing at all of the animal economy, and of the 

 nature of disease, can for one instant be gulled 

 into a belief that any one remedy can be, at all 

 times, good or proper, even for the same disease, 

 and for the same patient? A bumper of brandy 

 will cure the headache, providing that it be caused 

 by a disordered stomach ; but a glass of brandy, 

 administered for a headache arising from inflam- 

 mation of the brain, would, in all human probabi- 

 lity, destroy the patient. And how is the patient 

 to know from what cause his headache arises ? 



Such a work I have, to the best of my ability, 

 executed ; and I have done so in a series of fami- 

 liar Letters ; because I thought that it would afford 

 me the best opportunity of employing a plain and 

 conversational style, which is more necessary when 

 writing for readers who have no acquaintance what- 



