Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-one, by W. E. Dean, in the Clerk’s Office of the Southern District of New-York.

There is not an individual in the whole circle of the profession, to whom I could with greater satisfaction, or with so much propriety, dedicate this work, as to yourself.

Ardent and zealous in the advancement of our science, you must deeply deplore the prejudices that retard its progress;—eminently enlightened in Natural History, you can justly appreciate the importance of its applications to Medicine; while your well known earnestness in upholding the dignity, and in encouraging the legitimate exercise of our profession, marks you as the most proper patron of a work, the aim of which is to extinguish the false lights of empiricism, and to substitute a steady beacon on the solid and permanent basis of truth and science: at the same time, the extensive practice which your talents and urbanity so justly command in this metropolis, must long since have taught you the full extent of that empiricism which it has been my endeavour to expose, and the practical mischief of that ignorance which it has been my object to enlighten.

Nor let me omit to mention the claims of that friendship which has for many years subsisted between us; be assured that I am gratefully sensible of those personal obligations which so fully justify this public avowal of them; confidently trusting that you will not measure the gratitude which your kindness has inspired, by the merits of the offering by which it is acknowledged, but rather by the truth and sincerity of the Dedication, by which I am enabled to express