ere before
was only suffering and woe.

Another way in which I have found the copy to be of the greatest value
with these cases of unsatisfactory marital relations is the fact that,
often, by the parties _reading the copy together_ they have come to
a mutual understanding by so doing, and have established a _modus
vivendi_ which could not have been attained in any other way. When
such parties see their doctor singly, either of them, a prejudiced
view is very apt to result, and they would seldom, if ever, come
together to consult a physician regarding their troubles. But the
_reading of the book together_ makes a condition of affairs which is
very apt to work out for the best interests of all parties concerned.
Certainly, this is true, that in no case has the reading of the book
made bad matters worse, and in many cases, (indeed in nearly all of
them) it has been of untold value and benefit to the readers.

And because these things are so, because what I have written has
proved its worth in so many cases, I have finally concluded to give
the copy a larger field in which it may be used by other members of
the profession besides myself. I confide it to my fellow-members in
the profession feeling sure that they will use it among their patients
with wisdom and discretion; and my hope is that their so doing may
yield for them and theirs the most excellent results which have come
to me and mine, on these lines, in the years that have gone by.

Perhaps I ought to say that the somewhat unique typography of the
book, the large percentage of italics, and not a few capitalized words
that appear in the pages, comes from a duplication of the copy I have
used with my patients. I wrote the original copy in this way for the
sake of giving special emphasis to special points for my readers,
and the results attained I believe were very largely due to the
typographically emphatic form of the book. Appearing in type in this
way, it gives a sort of personal touch to what is thus presented to
the eye of the reader, and the tendency of this is to establish a
heart-to-heart relation between the author and the reader which could
not be attained in any other way.

All through the copy I have avoided the use of technical words, never
using such a term without explaining its meaning in plain English
in the words that immediately follow it. I found this an absolute
necessity in writing so that the lay reader could understand, in
saying things th