The opening of Preface
The Public are already in possession of many pharmaceutical compendiums and epitomes of plausible pretensions, composed with the view of directing the practice of the junior, and of relieving the occasional embarrassments of the more experienced practitioner. Nothing is farther from my intention than to disparage their several merits, or to question their claims to professional utility; but in truth and justice it must be confessed that, as far as these works relate to the art of composing scientific prescriptions, their authors have not escaped the too common error of supposing that the reader is already grounded in the first principles of the science; or, to borrow the figurative illustration of a popular writer, that while they are in the ship of science, they forget the disciple cannot arrive without a boat. I am not acquainted with any book that is calculated to furnish such assistance, or which professes to teach the GRAMMAR, and ground-work of this important branch of medical knowledge. Numerous are the works which present us with the detail, but no one with the philosophy of the subject.