A text-book of the practice of medicine for students and practitioners

Front matter

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Preface To Third Edition

The preparation of a third edition of a book on the Practice of Medicine is a task almost equal to the preparation of the text of. a first edition, particularly if so long a period as eight years has elapsed since the second edition appeared. Only those who keep themselves thoroughly abreast of all departments of medical endeavor can estimate what the changes have been in our conception of almost every disease as to etiology, pathology, and symptomatology, not to speak of treatment. Furthermore, only those who keep themselves thoroughly well informed can be as optimistic in regard to our struggle with disease as the nature of the advances justify. Every year sees an increasing army of investigators in physiology, pathology, bacteriology, protozoology, and therapeutics, meeting with occasional reverses, but as a whole moving onward to clearer ideas concerning some of the problems which but a short time ago seemed quite beyond hope of elucidation.

The text of the present edition has been most carefully revised, and on almost every page corrections and additions have been made, based upon a careful study of the contributions of others and the writer's increasing experience in hospital and private practice. An endeavor has been made to place the necessary facts in a concise form and to prepare the text so that it is easily read, rather than to resort to short, dogmatic sentences, which do not hold the attention because they do not lead the reader forward step by step.

My cordial thanks are due to Dr. Aller G. Ellis, Associate Professor of Pathology, for his careful reading and revision of the sections dealing with etiology and pathology, and to Dr. G. E. Price, Associate Professor of Nervous and Mental Diseases in the Jefferson Medical College, for similar services in connection with those parts of the volume dealing w T ith Diseases of the Nervous System.

H. A. H.

Philadelphia, 1915.