PREFACE.
He who engages in the labour of abridgement ought to feel that it is
a self-imposed task, for the successful performance even of which he will
not always be requited by the gratitude of those for whose benefit it
was undertaken. It is not enough that he is faithful to his original,
and that, while preserving its continuity of narrative and description, he
retains all that is relevant in facts and valuable in doctrines; thus giving,
in reduced dimensions, the characteristic features which were spread
out with fatiguing amplification in the large work. Expectation will
still go beyond ability; and, after all his conscientious pains-taking, he
must be prepared to hear of omissions charitably imputed to him as
negligences, and of compression complained of as obscurity. Many
who never read the original, and who would have been repelled by its
length and perplexing details, some who knew nothing at all antecedently
of its character, will affect a sudden critical illumination, and with an
oracular shrug whisper a wish that it had been spread out before them
entire.
If from timidity, or want of entire conviction of the propriety of
undertaking to abridge Muller’s great work on Physiology, it were
deemed necessary to invoke the sanction of authority, the editor of the
present volume might refer to one eminent teacher,* who advised the
measure, and to anothert who gave it his ready approval. The editor,
himself, felt assured, from an experience of many years teaching Phy¬
siology, as part of and in connection with the Institutes of Medicine,
that the work of Müller in its entireness, however admirably calculated
it may be to, furnish information to the writer and lecturer, is not
adapted to the wants, nor can it come within the requirements of the
student of medicine. It is a vast repertory of facts and opinions in
physiological science, but it bewilders the inexperienced votary by its
very extent; and he who has gone over it without halt or pause, or,
indeed, at all, may well speak, as even the indefatigable German student
himself is said to do, of his having performed a feat.
* Dr. Horner.
f Dr. Jackson.