The more intimately we are acquainted with our own organization, and the laws of our being, the more readily may we guard against the numerous causes of disease to which we are constantly exposed, and preserve a healthy equilibrium in the system. There are cases, also, where disease presents certain symptoms so distinctly marked, that almost any one possessed of an ordinary knowledge of the human system and of remedial agents, may by the careful administration of medicines, check in the commencement, a difficulty, which if allowed to progress for a few hours, might have gained such headway as to place the patient almost beyond the reach of aid. There are other cases where there is but slight derangement of the system, and the symptoms are so well marked, that the patient will have no difficulty in selecting the remedy, a few doses of which will produce speedy relief.

Thus, with a proper understanding of the laws of nature, and a certain knowledge of remedial agents, all possess the power, to a certain extent, of warding off disease, of relieving a vast amount of suffering, and prolonging their own lives.

I have endeavored in the introductory chapter before proceeding to the treatment of disease to make clear a few points:

1. I have spoken of the anatomical structure of the system, and the beautiful adaptation of the various parts to the duties of life.

2. The physiology of the system, the production from food of bone, and blood, and tissue, and the combustion and chemical changes, which are constantly going on within us.

3. The laws of health and the causes of disease, in which I have glanced at the transmission of disease from parent to child, and the necessity of a correct moral, physical and intellectual training.

In the introduction I have given some general rules for the proper selection and administration of remedies, for the diagnosis of disease, and the choice of a proper diet.

In the part on the treatment of disease I have aimed to be as full as is necessary in a work on domestic practice. I have also endeavored to avoid where it could be done, technicalities, and to make the subject as plain and simple as possible. In most cases the quantity of the dose has been given, and the frequency of its repetition, but as this must depend in a measure on circumstances I would urge a careful perusal of the article in the introduction on the administration of remedies.

In part third I have introduced a carefully abridged materia medica, in which the leading indications for a remedy are grouped together under the appropriate head. This will often aid materially in an appropriate selection.

While it has been my aim to prepare as clear and practical a guide as possible for the sick-room and domestic practice, I have had no wish to produce a work to supersede the labor of the physician.

No one who has not devoted years to the investigation of the human system, the causes of sickness, the power of remedial agents, and who is not able to look beneath the surface and trace from apparent unimportant symptoms the true seat and cause of the difficulty, is capable of grappling with all forms of disease and of fulfilling the high and holy duties of the physician. The responsibility which rests on him is a fearful, an awful one. It is no light thing to stand, as it were, between life and death, to rekindle the flickering lamp, almost extinct, to call back the fleeting breath, to arrest the downward course, and drive back that cold shadowy form, whose awful presence is already blanching the cheek and chilling the blood.

In the preparation of this work I have advanced no new, strange and unheard of theory of disease and its treatment, but have aimed to make a plain and practical family guide, in which may be found a description of the human system, hints for the prevention of disease, and its treatment after its seeds have become implanted in the human system. Happy will I be, if any effort of mine shall be the means of diffusing a correct knowledge of the human system "so fearfully and wonderfully made," and of alleviating in the slightest degree the vast amount of human suffering.