Preface.
In the four years that have elapsed since the first edition of this work was published, many suggestions have been presented for changes that might be made in the known methods of treating disease, or conditions of disease; but few have so stood the tests that are being made, as to assure us yet that they are real advances. There are thus no radical changes to be made in the text. Corrections have been made, as well as some minor alterations, but in the main, the book is the same. A few topics such as pellagra, the hookworm disease, and the treatment of diphtheria could be enlarged, but our scanty observations on these are by no means complete, and more must yet be determined.
The cordial reception and approval given the previous editions of this work, have been very flattering to the author, and have encouraged him to most earnest endeavor and persistent effort to add his mite toward determining the truth, as nearly as is possible for human effort to determine it, concerning the cause and importance of exact evidences and conditions of disease, and to determine the precise action of single remedies upon these exact conditions, that in the future, a positive, exact, reliable method of practice may be secured. This may seem Utopian, but it is not impossible, and when the enormous advances of the past two or three decades, over the previous knowledge (or ignorance) of the profession is considered, it does not seem unreasonable to say that if not actually immediate, such an ultimatum is not remote.
When the first edition of this work was published, it seemed expedient to divide the topics and publish the work in two volumes. I have since seen some objections to this method of publication, and these have caused me to decide to have this edition printed on a fine quality of light weight paper, and the two volumes bound in one. Both practitioners and students have expressed a preference for such a course. Each volume is as distinct as before, with the volume index immediately following it. The first volume, as seen by the Table of Contents, contains the Infectious diseases and diseases of Respiration and Circulation. The second volume contains diseases of the Digestive system, the Urinary and Nervous systems and of the Blood and Glandular systems as well as diseases of the Muscles, Special diseases and Intoxications.
Evanston, Illinois,. Sept. 1st, 1910.
