SEPTEMBER ii 



especially with regard to medicines and sleeping- 

 draughts, is often very injurious to the patient. I did 

 not for a moment mean to imply that love and devotion 

 could supply the qualities that are the result of training. 

 But a kind of clear-sightedness and instinct that comes 

 from love and devotion is by no means always to be 

 found in the professional nurse. 



I continue to quote typical letters on various subjects 

 as they crop up. One kind old clergyman thought so 

 flatteringly of my powers that he suggests that I should 

 'utilise the genius which has popularised your book 

 in some of those fields into which your book affords 

 glimpses — why not write on heredity?' The fact is, as 

 I have already said, I am not able to write a treatise on 

 cooking and gardening, much less could I pretend to 

 give the world any information on great subjects con- 

 nected with science ; and heredity more especially is 

 peculiarly buried in darkness, even for experts. He 

 concludes a long and interesting letter as follows : ' Some 

 years ago Sir F. Galton sent me a paper of inquiries 

 (which he was circulating among doctors) as to the 

 physical and psychical history of three generations of 

 ancestors.' This idea of Sir F. Galton's has been a 

 favourite one with me for years. I have always thought 

 that it woiild be of the greatest interest in families if a 

 careful register were kept of people's health, diseases, 

 and death, so that some idea might be formed of the 

 general tendencies of family diseases, with their suc- 

 ceeding development and treatment during three or four 

 generations. 



It seems satisfactory that a great number of the news- 

 paper critics gave me credit for common-sense. Some 

 few passages in 'Sons and Daughters' raised opposition, 

 but, I am bound to confess, much less than I CKpected. 

 My great disappointment was that I got so little actual 



