PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION.
In preparing for the English-reading student this version of M. Metchnikoff’s latest work, wherein he “sums up the labours of twenty-five years,” it has been my aim to give a faithful rendering of the ideas and argument of the original, even at the risk of an occasional crude expression, rather than to attempt to reproduce the brilliancy of the original by any wide verbal departure from the text.
The Table of Contents forms an admirable analytical summary of the main subject-matters treated, but an alphabetical Index has been added to the present edition, and, though not at all exhaustive, this may serve as a key to the many authors cited and to the maze of detail discussed in the work.
The marginal reference to the pages of the original work will, I hope, commend itself to those readers who may wish to refer to the ipsissima verba of the author. It is, I believe, a novelty in scientific works, though familiar in works in other departments of literature.
I am under deep obligations to Professor Woodhead (who has read the whole of the proofs) and to Mr A. E. Shipley, and Mr G. H. F. Nuttall (who have read portions) for much valuable criticism and advice.
August, 1905.