true.

It might be fitting to add a few words with regard to the Essay on the
Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever. But the whole question I consider to
be now transferred from the domain of medical inquiry to the
consideration of Life Insurance agencies and Grand Juries. For the
justification of this somewhat sharply accented language I must refer the
reader to the paper itself for details which I regret to have been forced
to place on permanent record.

BOSTON, January, 1861.




A SECOND PREFACE.

These Lectures and Essays are arranged in the order corresponding to the
date of their delivery or publication. They must, of course, be read
with a constant reference to these dates, by such as care to read them.
I have not attempted to modernize their aspect or character in presenting
them, in this somewhat altered connection, to the public. Several of
them were contained in a former volume which received its name from the
Address called "Currents and Counter-Currents." Some of those contained
in the former volume have been replaced by others. The Essay called
"Mechanism of Vital Actions" has been transferred to a distinct
collection of Miscellaneous essays, forming a separate volume.

I had some intention of including with these papers an Essay on
Intermittent Fever in New England, which received one of the Boylston