PREFATOIRY NOTICE. At the meeting of the Association of Baptist Churches in the 13engal Presidency, held at Calcutta at the close ^of 1849, it was resolved, at the suggestion of Babu Ram Krishna Kabiráj, that a popular Manual of Medicine should be published, with a view to diminish the great amount of bodily suffering, to which the inhabitants of the interior of Bengal are at present exposed. Thelčev. O. R. Bacheler, of Balasore, having previously drawn up an outline of such a manual for the benefit of a class of Oriya medical students, kindly underlooks to remodel and enlarge it, with a view to its being published in Bengali. The present volume is the result. The publication of it has laboured under great disadvantages. Thc author being imperfectly aequninted with - Bengali, and unable, from lus place of residence, to secure the assistance of a competent Pandit, the manuscript, when prepared, was found not to be in so satisfactory condition, in point of style, as could have been desired. The hope of introducing improvements, under the learned Author's direction, whilst the work was going through the press, was frustrated by his being compelled to proceed io America. And the undersigned, by whom it was edited, being unacquainted with medicine, did not feel himself at liberty to make more than a few verbal alterations. Ise sincerely regrets his inability to do justice to a treatise so well calculated to be useful. A glance at the table of contents will show that the work consists of three parts, viz. 1st, an outline of anatomy and physiology; 2ndly, a compendium of medicine properly so called, including materia medica ; and 3rdly, a brief sketch of surgery. J. WENGER.
