E-grāmata: Observations on Certain Parts of the Animal Oeconomy

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Always an admirer of the genius of Hunter, and of late years obliged by official duties to make frequent reference to his numerous and varied productions, especially to those which are scattered through different volumes of the Philosophical Transactions and other works, I have often felt the inconvenience that resulted from the absence of a uniform edition of the whole of the extant works of that great and original thinker. When, therefore, Mr. Palmer first communicated to me his design of publishing a new edition of Hunter's works, I heard with peculiar satisfaction his intention to include in the proposed collection every memoir of the author that could be found in print, and I gladly lent my assistance, which, however, the previous assiduous researches of Mr. Palmer rendered of little moment, towards completing a list of all the published essays or observations on various parts of the 'Animal A conomy' which had not before been included in the work so entitled. The proposal which Mr. Palmer at the same time made to me to edit this portion of the works of Hunter I declined, from a sense of the inadequacy of my powers to grapple with so vast a range of important physiological subjects as the contemplated volume must necessarily embrace, and I sincerely hoped that Mr. Palmer would have found a coadjutor better qualified than myself to do justice to this portion of his most useful and praiseworthy undertaking.

After a lapse of nearly two years Mr. Palmer again applied to me to revise the papers on the Animal A conomy, and I then acceded reluctantly to his request, led, by the sole motive of accelerating the appearance of a much wished-for edition, to a task, to which I have since dedicated a great portion of my leisure hours, without the slightest expectation of profit or honour, the experiment having only served to convince me of the difficulty of adding the observations demanded by the progress of science to the text of Hunter in the spirit of i