curacy; having procured his information from the most authentic sources, and en. riched his memoir with copious and learned Notes. His Biography of Cornaro, must necessarily, in my opinion, be the foundation of all future ones, since he has too clearly shown the errors and misstatements of all those previous, to entitle them to any credit. Besides this valuable Life of Cornaro, I have been enabled to enrich this edition with an interesting letter from Bernardin Tomitano to Cardinal Cornaro, which appeared as a dedication to the first edition of Cornaro's Discourses, published during the life of the Author, and under his direc tion, in 1558; and also with two very valu able and interesting letters from Cornaro himself to the Cardinal Cornaro, and to Sperone Speroni; the last of which merits the appellation of a Fifth "Discourse." These letters have been translated from the original Italian expressly for this edition, and are to be found in no other. From the above it will appear, that the additions and improvements in this edition are such as to render it superior to any other which has yet been published. The Notes and Appendix consist of such matters as seemed to me relevant, and to have an important bearing upon the sub ject of Dietetics. For them, I, of course, hold myself solely responsible; and although I may seem to some readers to wander, at times, in my illustrations; a second perusal will, I feel confident, be sufficient to show the pertinency of my remarks. Believing, as I firmly do, that the habitual excesses in eating and drinking, over which Cornaro so pathetically mourns, as cutting off thousands in the flower of youth, are committed to an equally deplorable extent, at this day, with all the superadded light which science and experi ence have furnished as a beacon to deter the unwary from the course of vicious in dulgence, I have felt it my duty to enforce the arguments of our Author, by examples afforded by the present advanced state of physiological research, which have, to my mind, the force of mathematical demonstration. The scriptural illustrations, tending to confirm the deductions of science and reason, cannot be deemed foreign to the subject; since the commands of God to his chosen people, to abstain from forbidden meats, are clearly based upon philosophica grounds, which render them equally appli cable to all mankind, extrinsic of Divine authority |
