Xll PREFACE. 



lectured upon one written by himself, because 

 anatomy had been so improved since the time 

 of Boerhaave, as to have become almost a new 

 science." * 



What Haller said at that period respecting ana- 

 tomy, will be allowed to apply much more forcibly 

 at present to physiology, by any one who consi- 

 ders the most important parts of the science, — 

 the principal purpose of respiration, animal heat, 

 digestion, the true nature and use of the bile, the 

 function of generation, &c. 



More, therefore, must be ascribed to the age 



than to the author, if in these Institutions, after 



so many modern physiological discoveries, he 



delivers doctrines more sound and natural than it 

 was in the power of his most meritorious pre- 

 decessors to deliver. 



Whatever he can claim as his own, whether 

 really new or only presented in a new view, 



* Pref. to the Prim. tin. Physiol. Gottingen. First edition. 



