The idea of preparing a new critical edition of Elisha Bartlett s Essay on the Philosophy of Medical Science was suggested to me several years ago by Dr. H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. Since that time it has been a pleasure to get to know the life and work of Elisha Bartlett. I am pleased to be completing this book in the bicentennial year of Bartlett s birth. Bartlett was born in 1804 in Smithfield, Rhode Island, less than twenty-five miles from Worcester, Massachusetts, my present home a short journey even in Bartlett s day. I have been able to walk at some of the sites to which Bartlett...