Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/70

 treatise might be ranged, would appear to be the following:─. I. The Natural History, comprehending all the external physical influences inherent in the particular locality, and existing independently of the human inhabitants. 2. The Civil or Economical History, comprehending all the influences, physical and moral. rising out of, or having reference to, the social condition of the inhabitants.─. I. The Statistical Results of these influences as exhibited in the Physical History of the inhabitants, the state of their health, and the laws which regulate procreation and mortality. 2. The Medical Results of these influences, or the diseases incident to the inhabitants, and their consequences.

In drawing up the following Sketch, I have endeavoured to keep this arrangement in view; but no one can be more fully aware than myself; how very inadequately and imperfectly the details have been executed. I have wished to express this imperfection by the title which I have given to my paper; but I could not feel satisfied without a more formal declaration of it in this place. In addition to my want of capacity to do the subject justice, under any circumstances, I have laboured under an accidental disadvantage in treating it, which has rendered my memoir much more defective than I had hoped it would be when I began collecting materials for its composition: I allude to the circumstance of my having left Cornwall before I had collected much of the information which I considered necessary for the completion of my plan.