A TREATISE ON THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE, LANK BY GEORGE B. WOOD, M.D., PROFESSOR OF THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF MEDICINE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA; PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF PHILADELPHIA; ONE OF THE PHYSICIANS OF THE PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL; ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF THE DISPENSATORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA; MEDICAL LIBRARY 17641 PHILADELPHIA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT AND CO.. Nos. 715 AND 717 MARKET STREET. 1858. Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1858, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States in and for the Eastern 146 W85 V. I 1858 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. IN adding another to the many existing Treatises on the Practice of Medicine, the author may be reasonably expected to show upon what grounds he has ventured to advance a new claim to the public attention, already so fully occupied. He has no other excuse to offer than this; that he has written in obedience to impulses which he could not well resist. Having been engaged, for nearly thirty years, in public and private practice, and, during that time, devoted an almost exclusive attention to the study of diseases and their remedies, he has accumulated facts, and formed opinions, which have been long soliciting expression, with an urgency to which he has at length yielded, though unfeignedly distrustful of their sufficient value. It will be inferred, from what has been said, that the present work claims to be something more than a mere compilation. In giving it the form of a General Treatise on the Practice of Medicine, it was incumbent upon the author, in order to do justice to his readers, to gather from every attainable source the knowledge which he might deem important; and he has accordingly consulted numerous works upon the different branches of his subject, and made ample use of the materials which they afforded. But these materials have for the most part been maturely considered, have been submitted to the closest scrutiny of which he was capable, and have been re-arranged in accordance with his own best judgment. In relation to facts, which, from having been known for a certain length of time, have become the common property of the profession, he has not deemed it necessary to quote authorities; but, wherever the influence of a name was thought necessary to support a position, or justice to ind viduals required that they should be noticed in connection with their iii |