The author has omitted referring to the books from which he has obtained some of his facts. His reason for doing so was, when he began to collect them, he did not expect to publish them, and of course did not mark the volumes and pages from which they were extracted. Since he formed that design he has faithfully preserved references to them both. He has suppressed them, only because their partial publication would have destroyed the uniformity of the work. He commits his imperfect labours, now before the reader, to his fellow citizens, with a hope that they may serve as a supplement to materials already collected, from which a system of principles may be formed that shall lead to general success in the treatment of the diseases of the mind. Experience has exhausted herself in abortive efforts for that purpose, and should the following attempt to co-operate with her by principles be alike unsuccessful, it must be ascribed to their being erroneous, for the author believes those diseases can be brought under the dominion of medicine, only by just theories of their seats and proximate cause.
Philadelphia, October, 1812.
