well
guarded by the supervision of medical men known favorably to the
profession.

Again, the physician cannot come _on time_ to save life, limb, or
looks to the victim of many a serious accident. And yet some bystander
could usually understand and apply plain rules for inducing
respiration, applying a splint, giving an emetic, soothing a burn or
the like, so as to safeguard the sufferer till the doctor's
arrival--if only these plain rules were in such compact form that no
office, store, or home in the land need be without them.

Finally, the doctor _cannot come at all_ to hundreds of thousands of
sailors, automobilists, and other travelers, to ranchers, miners, and
country dwellers of many sorts. This third class has had, hitherto,
little choice between some "Practice of Medicine," too technical to be
helpful, on the one hand, and on the other, the dubious literature of
unsanctioned "systems"; or the startling "cure-all" assertions
emanating from many proprietors of remedies; or "Complete Family
Physicians," which offer prescriptions as absurd for the layman as
would be dynamite in the hands of a child, with superfluous and
loathsome pictures appealing only to morbid curiosity, and with a
general inaccuracy utterly out of touch with twentieth-century
knowledge. What such people need, much more than the dwellers in
settled communities, is to learn the views of modern medicine upon the
treatment of the ever-present common ailments--the use of standard
remedies, cautions against the abuse of narcotics, lessons of
discrimination against harmful, useless, or expensive "patent
medicines," and proper rules of conduct for diet, nursing, and general
treatment.

Authentic health literature existed abundantly before the preparation
of these volumes, but it was scattered, expensive, and in most cases
not arranged for the widest use. Not within our knowledge has the body
of facts, most helpful to the layman on Sanitation and Hygiene, First
Aid, and Domestic Healing, been brought together as completely, as
clearly, as concisely, with a critical editing board so qualified, and
with special contributions so authoritative as this work exhibits.

"Utmost caution" has been a watchword with the editors from the start.
Those to whom the doctor _cannot come every day_ have been repeatedly
warned of the follies of self-treatment, and reminded that to-day it
is the patient that is treated--not the disease. Those to whom the
doctor _cann