AUTHOR'S PREFACE 



TO THE 



SECOND EDITION. 



THE present attempt to bring the results of my experience, which 

 are at variance with what is ordinarily taught, before the notice of 

 the medical public at large, in a connected form, has produced unex- 

 pected results ; it has found many friends and vigorous opponents. 

 Both of these results are certainly very desirable ; for my friends 

 will find in this book no arbitrary settlement of questions, nothing 

 systematical or dogmatical, and my opponents will be compelled at 

 length to abandon their fine phrases and to set to work and examine 

 the matters for themselves. Both can only contribute to the impul- 

 sion and advancement of medical science. 



But still both have also their depressing point of view. When 

 one has laboured for ten years with all the energy and zeal of which 

 he was capable, and has laid the results of his investigations before 

 the judgment of his contemporaries, one is only too apt to imagine 

 that a considerable part, that perhaps the greater and more import- 

 ant portion of them, would be pretty generally known. This was, 

 as I have learned by experience, not the case with my labours. One 

 of my critics attributes it to my bringing forward too many argu- 

 ments and lengthy cases in support of my views. It may be so, but 

 then I might perhaps have been allowed to expect that other critics 

 would have sought for the proofs, which they did not find here in 



