ADVERTISEMENT. IN committing these sheets to the press, which she does with the diffidence natural to one who makes her first essay as an author, and who has been led by circumstances rather than by choice to assume that character, the writer cannot help expressing her obligations to a valued medical friend, to whose suggestions and advice she has been deeply indebted, and but for whose constant encouragement, the work would never have seen the light. On questions, especially, that were more immediately connected with his profession, she has felt his assistance to be invaluable. Not only did he communicate most freely, wherever she was doubtful or ignorant, the results of his experience in the course of an extensive practice; but he furnished her with a variety of important facts and illustrations, which he was kind enough to draw up with his own hand, for insertion in the body of the work and she is willing to believe, that whatever judgment may be passed on the general scope and doctrines of the treatise, for which she alone is accountable, the medical information contained in it will render it useful as a book of reference, on the subject of diseases, to many a married woman. It was the author's wish, originally, to have delivered her precepts and advice in letters, conceiving that they might thus be most simply and naturally conveyed; but the opinion of her publishers and her friends has induced her to change her design, and throw them into the form of dialogues; a form which has of late become popular, and is at least attended with this advantage, that it has allowed her to explain more fully and minutely, whatever was difficult or obscure. LONDON, Nov. 1824. ADVERTISEMENT то THE SECOND EDITION. THE alterations made in the second edition of this little work are but few; not because the author conceives that there is no room for farther emendations and improvements; but because, from the rapid sale of the former impression, she is encouraged to hope that her desire to be useful to the young and inexperienced in domestic life has been appreciated; and that the public, in consideration of the utility of the design, are willing to overlook the defects in its execution. LONDON, OCTOBER, 1825. |