Excerpt from A Manual of Diagnosis of the Diseases of the Heart: Preceded by Clinical Researches, Calculated to Facilitate the Study of These Researches Much has been written on the heart, especially in the course of the few past years. But can this be a reason for ceasing to call public attention to the subject? Perhaps so, if all the problems that attach themselves to this study were at present resolved; if, upon all the principal features of the physiological and clinical history of the heart, a universal concert had replaced the discord which, for so long' a time, checked the progress of the science. But it is not thus; we may be even justified in declaring, that at the present moment few organs contribute so much to differences of Opinion and multiplied discussions, as the heart. Those who have been willing to undertake this part of our art, and who have even consecrated lengthy researches to it, have encountered doubt and hesitation in all' the divers systems, and with very little certainty in the diagnosis. This scepticism, this incredulity, constitutes, in my opinion, anachronism. I say it persuaded of its truth; and it is this happy belief in the certainty of our actual means of explora tion, and the disease, to proclaim aloud that which may place the science upon a footing that will no longer permit it to be said that it advances by hazard, that have induced me to add this small volume to those which have preceded it from others, in a great part from different and even contrary schools. 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.