The cyclopaedia of practical medicine: comprising treatises on the nature and treatment of diseases, materia medica and therapeutics, medical jurisprudence, etc., etc (Volume 1).

Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The cyclopaedia of practical medicine: comprising treatises on the nature and treatment of diseases, materia medica and therapeutics, medical jurisprudence, etc., etc (Volume 1). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

    9/790
    PBEEACE FROM THE ENGLISH EDITION. The Editors have at length the gratification of laying the Cyclopaedia of Prac- tical Medicine before the public in a completed state. It is impossible for them to look at the list of the Contributors by whose assist- ance this work has been accomplished without a deep-felt satisfaction; distinguished as that list is by so many names of celebrity in modern medicine, and including so many of the professors and teachers in London, Edinburg, Dublin, and Glasgow, whose reputation conveys a high and just authority to their doctrines. To have directed some part of the scientific exertions of such writers to the pages of the Cyclopaedia, and, also, to have elicited from not a few of the most accomplished among the provincial physicians of the empire, numerous and valuable contributions which but for the comprehensive plan of this work might never have been commu- nicated to the profession, is a result to which the Editors must ever feel proud and gratified to have conduced. With such efficient aid in all the parts of their undertaking, they have spared no personal pains, in the hope by uniformity of plan, simplicity of arrangement, and the harmony and consistency of its several portions, to make the Cyclopedia fully and fairly to represent the state of Practical Medicine at the time of its appearance. From innumerable foreign and domestic sources the scattered know- ledge which has so fast accumulated since the commencement of the present century has thus been gathered together, and placed at the command of every reader of the English language. Those acquainted with the actual limitation of such knowledge before the appearance of this work, and who have opportunities of knowing how slowly even valuable novelties are diffused in a form giving any assurance of their worth, will best be able to appreciate the importance of the extensive means of reference which the Cyclopaedia has at once introduced into the library of many English practitioners at home and abroad. The ambition of the Editors was not limited to the formation of a mere manual, fitted for those who only demand the smallest supply of exact intelligence with which practice can be carried on, or professional station maintained without a palpable exposure of ignorance. Their object was no less than to prepare a com- pendium of the best parts of ancient and modern medicine, theoretical and practical; not passing over with disregard the vast literature of the ancient writers, but rather rescuing it from the voluminous oblivion in which much of it was lost; and also collecting with care the more accurate, condensed, and applicable knowledge of modern authors and of modern times into a liberal and consistent system, from works little known to the generality of English readers, and familiarly known to very few. Thus, whilst the great claims of the older cultivators of medicine have never been forgotten, the labours of the moderns, and more particularly of the French, German, and Italian pathologists, by which, conjointly with those of British prac- titioners, the whole face of practical medicine may be said to have been changed, have attracted the most diligent and thoughtful attention. The learned reader