may be
instructive. Other parts, again, it is believed, will be found new to
the most of even educated minds. But men of the largest intellectual
attainments are commonly the most docile. Such men, meeting this little
work, will not shrink from a candid examination of its contents merely
on account of their comparative novelty, nor because the views expressed
differ essentially from those usually held by the medical faculty. The
candid, yet critical, attention of such gentlemen, the author especially
solicits. He assures them that he does not write at random, but from
careful research and practical experience. His _philosophic theories_ he
offers only for what they are worth. His _principles of practice_ he
believes to be scientifically correct and of great value.

Let it not be supposed that the author, in this work, assumes a
belligerent attitude towards the members of the medical profession.
Although anxious to modify and elevate their estimate of electricity as
a remedial agent, and to improve their methods of using it, he has no
sympathy with those who profess to believe, and who assert, that
medicines of the apothecary never effect the cure of disease; that where
they are thought to cure, they simply do not kill; and who contend that
the patient would have recovered quicker and better to have taken no
medicine at all. He knows that such allegations are false, as they are
extravagant; and so does every candid and unprejudiced observer whose
experience has given him ordinary opportunities to judge. The writer
believes it can be perfectly demonstrated that the advancement of
medical science in modern times--say within the last two or three
hundred years--has served to essentially prolong the average term of
human life. The world owes to medical instructors and practitioners a
debt of gratitude which can never be paid. Their laborious and often
perilous research in the fields of their profession, and their untiring
assiduity in the application of their science and skill to the relief of
human suffering, entitle them to a degree of confidence and affectionate
esteem which few other classes of public servants can rightly claim. For
one, the author of this little book most sincerely concedes to them, as
a body, his confidence, his sympathy, and his grateful respect. And the
most that he is willing to say to their discredit, (if it be so
construed), is that he regards them as having not yet attained
_perfection_ in their