Excerpt from An Attempt to Establish, Vol. 1 of 2: The First Principles of Chemistry I have been induced to lay the result of my investigations before the public, chiefly for two reasons, with which I think it requisite to acquaint you. The first of these is, the great advantage which medical practitioners will derive from a knowledge of the atomic weights of bodies, and of the weights of the integrant particles of the salts, &c., which they have occasion to employ in their prescriptions. This knowledge will be easily acquired by a perusal of the following pages; and it will enable those who possess it to avoid some very awkward blunders, into which I have observed too many practitioners, even of considerable celebrity, frequently to fall, to the no little inconvenience of their patients. Indeed, till the atomic theory was pretty completely investigated, even chemists themselves were not exempt from such mistakes; and I could point out, if I thought proper, some remarkable examples of men who would take it amiss if the world did not give them credit for possessing much chemical science, falling into mistakes that no student of mine, who took the trouble to follow and understand the lectures delivered on chemistry in the College of Glasgow, would run any hazard of committing. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.