"THE first Sketch of the following Essays was wrote for the Service of a Friend, without any Intention of mine to have been an Author. When they were published, I was glad of the Opportunity which the second Edition of the Anatomy of the Bones gave me to correct them, and I thought Mr. Winslow's Anatomy made any further Labour of mine on these Subjects unnecessary. But whenever it was foreseen that this third Edition of the Osteology was to be printed, I was teazed with the Importunities of Friends and Scholars, to make the Anatomy of the Nerves more complete, and to tack the other two Essays to it. It was in vain for me to plead the Difficulty, if not Impossibility of bringing the Physiology of the Nerves to any Certainty, tho'it might engage me in an endless Dispute; and that any other Description of the Distribution of the Nerves, than what Mr. Winslow had given, was altogether superstuous: They insisted, would not be refused, and forced me to undertake it.
This is an edition of a classical book first published in the eighteenth century.