DR. HOMER'S PREFACE. 



THE value of the present work having been sufficiently tested by its very 

 diffused use in the profession, and by a third edition being now called for, the 

 editor has been induced to superintend the latter, with a hope that its utility and 

 the public conviction in its favor have been in no wise diminished. The close- 

 ness of the connexion between himself and its lamented author, furnished, also, 

 another and a very powerful reason, why he should endeavor by such means 

 as he commanded, to contribute to perpetuate the memory of a man whose 

 literary and professional career had been so conducive to the reputation of his 

 country, and whose philanthropy and suavity of manners had established him 

 so firmly in the affections and confidence of all who knew him. 



Several amendments have been introduced by the way of corrections, altera- 

 tions and additions. The latter, for the most part, appear between brackets, 

 and in the form of notes, but there are many which could not be marked in 

 such a manner without giving the text a garbled appearance, they therefore 

 appear as portions of the original work. 



The whole mass of matter introduced as amendments is greater, indeed, than 

 a superficial perusal of the work would intimate ; and the only way for the 

 reader to arrive at it, will be by a careful comparison of the last with the pre- 

 sent edition. The editor, however, has been careful not to allow the spirit of 

 change or improvement to affect the work in any points except such as seemed 

 to him absolutely to require it, and where he was fully warranted by the best 

 authorities in Descriptive Anatomy. It would have been sufficiently easy for 

 him to have extended the work considerably beyond its present dimensions ; 

 but from its having been originally designed as a text-book of the course of 

 Lectures on Anatomy in the University of Pennsylvania, and for the benefit of 

 practitioners, who are always most assisted by condensed views on this subject, 

 he was apprehensive of perverting or of frustrating its objects by such exten- 

 sion. In consequence of which he has principally confined himself to adding 

 where additions were called for by recent discoveries in Anatomy, and by the 

 omission of older ones. 



Philadelphia, Oct. 10th, 1823. 



