6 PREFACE. 



to the preservation of health and the intelligent obser- 

 vation of those natural laws on which much of our 

 comfort and tranquillity depends. 



If there is any natural object in the wide creation 

 worthy of the attention and study of youth, it is the 

 human system. Certainly there is no other material 

 object which more fully displays the Creator's wis- 

 dom, power, and goodness. The slightest study of 

 our mortal frame draws forth that reverent and feeling 

 exclamation "We are fearfully and wonderfully 

 made!" Yet our children are too often suffered to 

 grow up, and finish their term of school instruction, 

 without ever having their attention called to this sub- 

 ject. Such ignorance should not be suffered any 

 longer to exist. It is unworthy of rational beings to 

 spend months and years in acquiring frivolous and 

 useless accomplishments, while they remain wholly 

 uninformed concerning the organs, powers, and facul- 

 ties which the all- wise Creator has given them ; and 

 of the most obviously necessary precautions for their 

 preservation. 



The editor believes that the members of the medical 

 profession will approve of that part of the volume to 

 which he at present refers ; as one of the most fre- 

 quent causes of their want of success, is the deplorable 

 ignorance of their patients on those points of physiology 

 with which every one should be acquainted. 



