Diseases of the nervous system : a text-book for students and practitioners of medicine / by H. Oppenheim, translated and edited by Edward E. Mayer.

  • Oppenheim, Hermann, 1858-1919.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Diseases of the nervous system : a text-book for students and practitioners of medicine / by H. Oppenheim, translated and edited by Edward E. Mayer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/994
    t PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. In offering this work to the present and future students of nervous diseases, I feel the responsibility which such an undertaking involves. I have tried to present, from the vast amount of literature on the sub- ject, only that which appears to have a sure basis and is founded on facts. In addition to the inadequacies and defects in our knowledge of nervous diseases, the limits and compass of my own experience have compelled me to add much which is not yet accurately known. My endeavors were, above all, to make this book useful to practi- tioners. Much stress has, therefore, been laid upon symptomatology, diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutics, while only so much space was given to pathological anatomy as was needed to shed light upon the course of a disease or to pave the way for a diagnosis. The normal anatomy and physiology of the nervous system have been considered in a concise yet complete manner, and their exposition has been enriched by appropriate plates. Literary references have been omitted, as they would have made the book larger than I wished it to be. Only in the more important investigations have names been cited. In doing this I am conscious that I may be severely censured. The specialist will notice that I have freely consulted the extant text-books and hand-books of nervous diseases, and especially mono- graphs, which form the chief source of our knowledge; he can, how- ever, not help remarking that all that I have written is corroborated by personal observation and knowledge. The most difficult part of my task was in the presentation of the therapeutics of nervous diseases. In the sections devoted to treatment I make free use of everything that has been recommended by our leaders in nervous therapeutics as well as of what has been tried by myself, and hope that I have neither been too sceptical nor fallen into the more dangerous error of being too free and uncritical. At the moment of sending this work to press, I owe it to myself to