In preparing this edition we have revised the former one carefully and made such changes as time has rendered necessary. Considerable additions and alterations in especial have been made to sections on Nervous Diseases and Digestive Diseases, and the Ductless Glands are dealt with for the first time. The bulk of the work stands and we have retained many old headings, although they stand for symptoms and not for diseases (e.g., diarrhoea, etc.), because Ruddock is the layman's book primarily, and to the layman it is the prominent symptom which naturally calls for treatment.

The older sections on diseases now rare (Typhus. Relapsing Fever, etc.) are retained in the main, for it seemed to us right to keep the hand of Dr. Ruddock as much in evidence as possible.