Preface:

In rain has been the search for a work on Rheumatism that was at once up-to-date, available and reliable, but so far have not Ijeen able to find one, and like Bell with his immortal work on Diarrhoea, etc., have gathered together in the past twelve years reliable and verified symptoms and put them in convenient form, but as my script is almost unreadable, concluded to print the MSS. and give my friends the benefit, for which reason this work appears among you.

The publication of this work was offered to Boericke and Tafel, but as they already had a ten year old work on hand they hardly felt like printing another one, and I inferred from this that there would not be any other work published on Rheumatism as long as a copy of the ten year old edition could be sold.

Rheumatism, while a very prevalent disease, seems to me to have been a very much neglected subject as far as works go. That there is and has been a demand for works on this subject is evinced by the large number of subscriptions already received for this little book.
It is the sincere wish of the compiler of this Repertory that it may prove as great a convenience to his fellow physicians as it has to himself.