EDITOR'S PREFACE ΤΟ THE TWENTY-FIFTH EDITION. IN the autumn of 1875 I was asked by the Publishers to undertake the revision of this wellknown work and its companion volume, The Maternal Management of Children in Health and Disease.' Believing that the experience I had gained, whilst holding various resident and other appointments in hospitals, both in England and on the Continent, would materially help me, I undertook the task. I wish it to be distinctly understood that the general plan of the work remains unchanged, although it has been found necessary to make alterations in many and to rewrite some of the chapters altogether. I can lay no claim to any of the credit, which the undoubted merits of the book have earned for it; this belongs to its original author. My task has been to adapt the subject-matter to the altered views which are now held both as regards the recognition and the treatment of disease. No attempt has been made to alter the homely style in which the volume was originally written, nor to introduce material appropriate to a textbook of medicine but not to a guide for layreaders. Such hints as are necessary for an emergency, or in the unavoidable absence of the medical man, are given throughout the volume, and I have fully kept in mind the fact that the book circulates freely in the Colonies, where medical help is not always obtainable, but where prompt action is urgently required. LONDON: October 1876. ROBERT WM. PARKER. PREFACE ΤΟ THE FIRST EDITION. In the minds of married women, and especially in young females, those feelings of delicacy naturally and commendably exist which prevent a full disclosure of their circumstances when they find it necessary to consult their medical advisers. To meet this difficulty, as well as to counteract the ill-advised suggestions of ignorant persons during the period of confinement—are the chief objects of the following pages. While it is believed that much of the information contained in this volume is highly important to the comfort and even to the welldoing of the married female, much of it is, at the same time, of a character upon which she cannot easily obtain satisfaction. She will find no diffi culty in reading information for which she would find it insuperably difficult to ask. There are many little circumstances, too-in which it does not occur to her to seek for adviceof the nature and result of which she ought not to be ignorant. Young married women are especially liable to many needless yet harassing fears, which it has been the anxious object of the author to remove by showing that they have no foundation in truth. It has often been necessary to be minute; but that, it is imagined, will not be regarded as an imperfection. The author's connection for some years past with a large and important Midwifery Institution has led him to direct especial attention to the important subject upon which he has ventured to appear before the public; and he must leave his work with them, in the hope that he has not written altogether in vain. |