has made the great names shine out, without any depreciation of the
important work of lesser men and without cluttering up his narrative
with the tedious prehistory of great discoveries or with shrill claims
to priority. Of his skill in differentiating the sundry "strains"
of medicine, there is specific witness in each section. Osler's wide
culture and control of the best available literature of his subject
permitted him to range the ampler aether of Greek medicine or the
earth-fettered schools of today with equal mastery; there is no quickset
of pedantry between the author and the reader. The illustrations (which
he had doubtless planned as fully for the last as for the earlier
chapters) are as he left them; save that, lacking legends, these have
been supplied and a few which could not be identified have with regret
been omitted. The original galley proofs have been revised and corrected
from different viewpoints by Fielding H. Garrison, Harvey Cushing,
Edward C. Streeter and latterly by Leonard L. Mackall (Savannah, Ga.),
whose zeal and persistence in the painstaking verification of citations
and references cannot be too highly commended.

In the present revision, a number of important corrections, most of
them based upon the original MS., have been made by Dr. W.W. Francis
(Oxford), Dr. Charles Singer (London), Dr. E.C. Streeter, Mr. L.L.
Mackall and others.

This work, composed originally for a lay audience and for popular
consumption, will be to the aspiring medical student and the hardworking
practitioner a lift into the blue, an inspiring vista or "Pisgah-sight"
of the evolution of medicine, a realization of what devotion,
perseverance, valor and ability on the part of physicians have
contributed to this progress, and of the creditable part which our
profession has played in the general development of science.