The nature and purpose of this publication will be sufficiently explained by the following extract of a letter from Dr. Gregory to the Editor.
‘I have now perused, with great attention and much pleasure, the translation of Dr. Faust’s Catechism of Health, which you put into my hands a few days ago. I adhere to the favourable opinion of it which I expressed to you after reading only two or three pages of it when you first shewed it me; and, as, in reading it over carefully, I put my marks either of assent and approbation, or of dissent, or of doubt to almost every proposition in it; I can say, with confidence, that I think it a work of very extraordinary merit, and one that, if it were generally known in this country, might be of infinite use. It is, indeed, the best popular medical work I ever read: nor do I in the least wonder at the extensive distribution, and the high estimation of it in Germany.’
‘To the best of my judgment it contains more solid good sense, and more useful information, in less bulk, than any medical book I ever saw, from the Aphorisms of Hippocrates to your last edition of the Family Physician inclusive; and what I reckon of very great consequence, there is less mixture of nonsense in it, which might either confound or mislead those for whose use it is intended.’
‘I highly approve your benevolent purpose of reprinting it here, and diffusing it as generally as possible.’
‘I think you should print a great many copies on the cheapest paper, that the poor people may afford to purchase it, or, that those in more affluent circumstances may be encouraged to purchase great numbers of them, and to distribute them among their poor neighbours. By all means print a good number in the handsomest manner on the finest paper, to tempt fine people to buy and read it.’
