some influential teacher-sometimes the result of real advances in pathology and therapeutics.

The Lectures are dogmatical in tone, because they were addressed to students; and I believe dogmatism to be essential for successful student-teaching. I endeavoured to make them practical in regard of diagnosis and treatment, because they were delivered to a clinical class. The details of the cases are few, partly because the majority of the patients were seen in private, and partly because I have found that students are more confused than instructed, when copious details of a case are placed before them.

Since the Lectures were delivered, several other cases of Diphtheria have come under my observation. Some of these having presented special points of interest, or peculiarities illustrating general statements in the Lectures, I have added materially to the text, and slightly modified its arrangement.

8, HARLEY STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE,

January, 1861.

L138 J54 1861

PREFACE.

THE TWO Lectures which form the greater part of this little book, were delivered to the medical clinical class at University College Hospital. Thinking that even an imperfect and incomplete account of the present epidemic of Diphtheria in London, by a practitioner who has seen most of its severer phases, would be acceptable to the profession, I determined to publish my experience. The symptoms of diphtheria, during the present epidemic, agree in all essential particulars with those observed in past epidemics. Indeed my study of the histories of epidemic and other diseases, leads me to the conclusion that diseases preserve their essential characters and natures from age to age, while the opinions of the profession respecting them and their treatment change from year to year. This change seems to be sometimes the result of the personal sway of

some influential teacher-sometimes the result of real advances in pathology and therapeutics.

The Lectures are dogmatical in tone, because they were addressed to students; and I believe dogmatism to be essential for successful student-teaching. I endeavoured to make them practical in regard of diagnosis and treatment, because they were delivered to a clinical class. The details of the cases are few, partly because the majority of the patients were seen in private, and partly because I have found that students are more confused than instructed, when copious details of a case are placed before them.

Since the Lectures were delivered, several other cases of Diphtheria have come under my observation. Some of these having presented special points of interest, or peculiarities illustrating general statements in the Lectures, I have added materially to the text, and slightly modified its arrangement.

8, HARLEY STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE,

January, 1861.