48 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
year have again increased in number. This has necessarily 
led to an increase in the size of the volume, which we hope 
is for a permanency. We claim but little for this gratifying 
state of things, because we know that the principal value of 
the work arises from the communications it contains; there- 
fore our thanks are due, and gratefully given, to the many 
authors thereof. And are we now under any apprehension 
that our friends will fail in the continuance of what they 
have so nobly begun — to give to us the result of their expe- 
rience and observation? We are not. Rather we believe 
that we shall obtain an augmentation here, and thus enhance 
the worth of our periodical, for we could tell of some whose 
promises yet remain unfulfilled. 
We felt from the first the weight of the responsibility 
resting upon us, yet we have never shrunk from it. We 
may not have courted it — indeed, we did not — but we were 
promised support when we commenced our labours, and 
hitherto we have received it. 
Co-operation is indispensable to the advancement of any 
object. Singly but little perhaps can be accomplished, since 
thestrongestand clearest intellect soon finds itself to be limited 
in its powers and weak. Then there is also to be taken into 
consideration how much mental labour is saved by it; and 
being made acquainted with what others have done will 
often prevent the mortification of finding out what has been 
long before known. On this account, we have not confined 
ourselves exclusively to our own division of medicine, but 
whenever we have met with anything that bore, however re- 
motely, on it in the sister branch of science, or elsewhere, we 
have not hesitated to transfer the same to our pages, thus 
adding to their value. We would not have our professional 
brethren ignorant of what is passing around them, by 
which they may become benefited, since we think much 
that is suggestive may be thus obtained. Our ambition 
might have led us to hope to furnish an intellectual work 
for posterity, only we know that this is for genius alone 
to accomplish. Our earnest desire, therefore, has been to 
be useful, and so to labour as to be approved of. Whether 
