The former edition of this treatise was offered to the medical public as the first of an intended series of practical illustrations of febrile diseases, drawn from clinical facts and anatomical investigations. Since then the promise has been partly redeemed by the publication of two volumes; in which an endeavour was made to describe and explain the effects of simple excitement, inflammation, and congestion on the various functions and tissues of the body; but as, in the mean time, the puerperal fever has been repeatedly brought under my review, it became necessary, that, the particulars latterly acquired should be embodied with those formerly published, in order to fix the work on a broader and more substantial basis.
