PREFACE. 



Evert physician who has spent years of an 

 active life in prescribing for large numbers of 

 patients, is morally bound to publish his ex- 

 perience to the world, provided he is satisfied, 

 in his interior conscience, that such a publi- 

 cation might be useful to the general interests 

 of humanity. 



In offering the following essay to my readers, 

 I simply desire to fulfil an obligation recog- 



■ ^ nised as valid by the inner sense. This essay 

 contains every thing that an experience 

 of forty years in the conscientious and 



^ philanthropic exercise of my profession has 



^ sanctioned and confirmed as truth. Nor have 



I adopted a single fact, suggested by my own 



1^ observation, as correct, without contrasting it 

 with the most approved records of medicine. 



V^. To every true friend of man, and more 



o I particularly to every physician who considers 

 . the business of healing disease as the highest 



