ELISHA BARTLETT, M. D., LATE PROFESSOR OF MATERIA MEDICA AND MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE IN THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS Fourth Edition, Rebised. BY A. CLARK, M.D., PROFESSOR OF PATHOLOGY AND PRACTICAL MEDICINE IN THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS All diseases, then, ought to be reduced to certain and determinate kids, with the same exactness as we see it done by botanic writers in their treatises of plants. For there are diseases that come under the same genus, bear the same name, and have some symptoms in common, which, notwithstanding, being of a different nature, require a different treatment. In writing, therefore, a history of diseases, every philosophical hypothesis, which hath prepossessed the writer in its favor, onght to be totally laid aside, and then the manifest and natural phenomena of diseases, however minute, must be noted with the utmost accuracy, imitating in this the great exactness of painters, who, in their pictures, copy the smallest spots or moles in the originals.-Sydenham. Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1847, by LEA AND BLANCHARD, in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United States in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. PHILADELPHIA: T. K. AND P. G. COLLINS, PRINTERS. L106 B28 1856 ΤΟ JOHN ORNE GREEN, M. D., OF LOWELL, MASSACHUSETTS; WITH whom the early and active part of the writer's life was passed; in a personal friendship which no cloud, for a single moment, ever shadowed or chilled; and in a professional intercourse whose delightful harmony no selfish interest nor personal jealousy ever disturbed; this volume, the best materials for which were gathered during the period thus consecrated by useful labors and social duties, now endeared to us both by many sad and pleasant memories, is most affectionately inscribed. NOVEMBER 1, 1847. PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. BY THE EDITOR. THE distinguished author of this volume had performed his last scientific labor, when his third edition was prepared for the press. Sixteen months ago, he closed his brilliant professional career, after years of growing bodily weakness and pain; his mind not dimmed by his physical infirmities, but bright and comprehensive, glowing with the memories of the past, and the visions of the future. He died too soon for the profession he adorned. The clock had hardly marked twelve-at-noon, on the dial plate of life, when its pendulum strokes grew faint, and gradually fainter to the ear; and now, at length, when all is still, the hand that notes the hours points sadly upward, to indicate how much of daytime still remained to reap the harvest of affection and honor, in those fields, from which he had already garnered up so many golden sheaves. He died, alas! too soon. The whole profession are his mourners; for conspicuous as he had become by his medical writings, and his extended professional labors; his acknowledged worthiness, his innate gentleness and modesty disarmed envy. He left no enemies. His mind and purpose were pure, almost beyond example. His high mental endowments were controlled and directed by a considerate judgment and an earnest, benevolent heart; and as the laws of refraction, wrought out into mathematical formulæ, enable the lapidary to construct the facets which open the fountains of the many-colored diamond, so for him, cultivation and elegant taste had brought out the varied and winning native lights of his rich intellectual, moral, and social nature. But I need not write his eulogy. His professional influence at least, his opinions, his method, his prudence, his mind live in thousands who have listened to his finished teachings, or have read his thoughtful pages. |