AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
Life and death, considered in a general manner, appeared to me a subject susceptible of several views, and many useful experiments. It was this which determined me to undertake the work which I now offer to the Public. I flatter myself the reader will find in it some considerations and facts but little known. Those, however, who have read Aristotle, Buffon, Morgagni, Haller, Bordeu, and others who have written upon this subject, will see that those authors have furnished me with some hints; but they will at the same time know how to distinguish the share which belongs to myself; and I dare hope they will see enough to convince them that whatever is not my own holds but a secondary place in these researches: I must except however the division of life.
Books resemble each other, either in the facts which they contain, or in the style in which they are written. The comparison of facts is easily made; it will show perhaps that many of those which I offer, were wanting to the science. As to the method observed in this work, I have endeavoured equally to avoid placing myself among those who accumulate experiments without correspondent reasoning, and among those who produce arguments unfounded in experiment.
