DEDICATION TO THE MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL OF EVERY DENOMINATION. MY DEAR SIRS, This small volume appears to me so much adapted to your use and benefit, that I see a propriety in dedicating it to you. In connection with services so valuable and momentous as are rendered to mankind through your instrumentality, a correct knowledge of the fundamental principles of health, disease, and its treatment, becomes of great moment. This knowledge must bear directly on your usefulness, in enabling you to select the best means for the preservation of your health, and to avoid those things which tend to destroy it; and, on many occasions of indisposition, to adopt the suitable means of its restoration. It will likewise enable you, on many occasions, to administer suitable advice to those under your spiritual care; as well as to keep them from error on such important matters. There is ever a peculiar propriety in your ability, to some extent at least, to advise for the welfare of the perishing body as well as for that of the deathless soul. Moreover, I regard the knowledge of that portion of the anatomy and physiology of the human body which I have introduced into these pages as also specially profitable to you, inasmuch as it has a powerful tendency to deepen the impression on the mind respecting the glorious attributes of God, and to fix it more firmly on the great truth of the Bible and Christianity. I see an additional reason for this dedication in the strong conviction of my mind, that the most important results may frequently depend on a minister's knowledge of the physical constitution of man; and more particularly on such knowledge as I have endeavoured to communicate in these letters: I allude especially to the intimate connection and dependance of the state of the mind on that of the body. From ignorance of this great fact, or from neglect of it, very serious mistakes are liable to occur in the chamber of sickness and of death: there, or elsewhere, the changes of the bodily constitution are liable to be mistaken for those of the immortal soul. I can think of no other class of non-medical readers to whom a correct understanding of the subjects treated of in these letters can be more useful and more important. With earnest wishes that my small and imperfect book may become the means of much good in your hands, I remain, Yours affectionately, Thirsk, 22nd May, 1858. J. HORNER. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. THIS small book has been composed exclusively for nonmedical readers. The Author's aim is to instruct them on the essential principles of health, disease, and its treatment. He hopes that the information contained in these few pages will prove effectual in protecting them from error of judgment respecting things which so greatly concern themselves, and which they ought to understand. It ought to shield them from the hollow pretensions of empiricism or quackery of all kinds in connection with the treatment of diseases. He confidently trusts that it will also guard them against that interested party spirit which confines itself to one class and kind of curative means, and so violently opposes all other modes of cure, however excellent, and based on the sure principles of physiology. He need not now particularize further respecting these, for he can safely leave the intelligent reader to decide for himself, after his careful perusal of what is here advanced on the subject. The Author is anxious for an extensive circulation of his little volume; and for that purpose he has determined on the lowest possible price for its sale. He has also chosen the epistolary style of composition, as the best adapted and most agreeable viii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. medium for communicating knowledge of these subjects to the general reader. He has avoided the use of technical terms as much as possible, and in the few instances where they necessarily appear they are explained; so that no one can complain that the language is unintelligible. In order to impress the more essential principles and important particulars on the reader's mind, he has not hesitated to use repetitions, and to make frequent reference to past statements. This may possibly be thought a fault of composition; if so, it has been purposely committed for the benefit of his readers. In the prosecution of his plan of instruction, the Author has proceeded on the impression that some preparatory explanation of the functions of the body, in direct connection with the subject, becomes really necessary when writing for non-medical readers. The reader is requested to carefully peruse and to consider well the contents of the first of these three letters; for it will greatly aid him to correctly understand the other two. (The contents of the first letter of the first Edition now occupy the first five letters of the second Edition.) But little difficulty can be experienced by any one of moderate education in understanding this book. The Author has aimed especially at making it plain and intelligible. The woodcuts have been introduced still more to facilitate the reader's understanding of the organs and functions of the body, and to keep the impression on his mind more vivid and more lasting concerning them. |