The advantages of such connected views must be obvious. In the scattered practical observations, opinions have differed as widely as the statures and complexions of the authors. Each can only be with justice appreciated on its own foundation; and the motley character, a work compiled with little discrimination, must soon render it disgusting. If, in the course of the inquiry, any general connection, any link, which will connect the apparently discordant facts to one principle, be discovered; if this link be furnished, as has often happened, by the author's own limitation of his plan or remedy, these facts will at once combine with the others, and form a dependant part of the whole. It will thus be more easily retained, and contribute to illustrate the collateral subjects.

Were a work of this kind a mere compilation, even the same article would not be consistent; for it is not easy to find the author from whom the pathology, and the whole of the practice, could be properly taken. Should the talents of each be equally exerted in every part, new views and new plans must in many instances have arisen. If, then, the plagiarist cannot find the whole in any work, he must constantly submit, like many of our predecessors, to inconsistencies. He may detail the pathology with ability; but his practice will be at variance. He may explain the structure of a part; but it will have little connection with the elucidation of its functions. Were the practice of Burserius, for instance, appended to the pathology of Cullen, without those explanations which the different views and designs of each author would suggest, the reader might suspect that two distant parts of a work had by accident joined; or, if the theory of Darwin were followed by the solemn indications and the judicious pratical remarks of Van Swieten, they would appear the "aegri somnia,"and might justly be styled "vanae species."

In the conduct of this work it has been the great object to collect information the most extensively useful within the shortest compass: a concise and comprehensive language has been, consequently, adopted. In detailing the sentiments of other authors, their opinions, rather than their words, have been preserved; we thus not only avoid the tautology and diffuse-ness too common among the greater number of medical writers, but connect the subject with other parts of the work, and point out its influence on other branches of the science. A fertile source of prolixity, in medical publications, is the detail of cases, which, though sometimes useful in illustrating the author's doctrine, more frequently shows its weakness. As these cases are crowded with circumstances, often uninteresting, the general result, and those portions of the narrative which limit or influence the consequences, are alone preserved. Controversies have been, for the same reason, avoided. Of these it is sufficient to point out the existence, and the works in which they may be most advantageously examined; and if a little dogmatism in decision sometimes appears, this tone has not been adopted without the most attentive consideration of the different and opposite arguments.

As the form is that of a dictionary, and the object to afford a ready resource in emergencies, each article is designed to be in itself satisfactory, that, in the moment of necessity, it may not be requisite to turn over two quartos. For this reason, in each will be found an abridged view of the subject, with an immediate reference to those pages where it is treated more satisfactorily. The references are, indeed, the bond of union between the distinct portions of the work, and the connection has, by their means, been kept up with peculiar care. Though sometimes numerous, they are select, and, we trust, satisfactory.

Anatomy is the foundation of the whole science, and the structure of the different organs is essential in the explanation of their functions; while, in the practice of surgery, the minutest investigation of the course of the arteries, and the exact situation of the more important organs, can alone insure success. In a work of this kind, however, extreme minuteness is unnecessary; for dissection alone can convey those accurate and vivid ideas which must direct the surgeon's hand. The descriptions are chiefly designed to convey general instruction, or, in the more important parts, to assist the recollection of what dissection had, at an earlier period, taught. The great difficulty was, therefore, to steer between accounts, uselessly vague, or unnecessarily minute; nor is it to be expected that every reader will concur with the author in his determinations in these respects.

In physiology the latest opinions have been detailed, and these have been carefully connected with former theories, sometimes showing that modern philosophers have not always those considerable claims to originality which have been so liberally allowed. Pathology, in modern medical publications, is almost a new science; but the facts which illustrate the natural history of the human body, in a morbid state, connected with the appearances on dissection, have been collected with great diligence, often from the almost forgotten pages of Morgagni, or the neglected ones of Bonetus; assisted by numerous instructive narratives from the different collections of "Essays,""Observations and Inquiries,"and "Transactions,"in our own language. This part of our labour teaches one melancholy lesson, that many diseases are beyond the reach of human art, whether the changes be considered as causes or effects. But it also represses overweening confidence, prevents disappointment and, by a sagacious prognostic, secures the credit of the science and the practitioner. The general pathology is that of Gaubius, with the judicious retrenchments and additions of Cullen, farther improved by the new discoveries of the chemical nature of the animal fluids; for, no work has been copied through the whole article, except where the quotation is distinguished, in the usual way, by inverted commas, or where the general substance is acknowledged.