hink, within moderate limits, we owe him credence. For the rest, we
doubt not that the modern reporter is, to be mild, quite as much of a
myth-maker as his elder brother, especially if we find modern instances
that are essentially like the older cases reported in reputable
journals or books, and by men presumably honest. In our collection we
have endeavored, so far as possible, to cite similar cases from the
older and from the more recent literature.

This connection suggests the question of credibility in general. It
need hardly be said that the lay-journalist and newspaper reporter have
usually been ignored by us, simply because experience and investigation
have many times proved that a scientific fact, by presentation in most
lay-journals, becomes in some mysterious manner, ipso facto, a
scientific caricature (or worse!), and if it is so with facts, what
must be the effect upon reports based upon no fact whatsoever? It is
manifestly impossible for us to guarantee the credibility of chronicles
given. If we have been reasonably certain of unreliability, we may not
even have mentioned the marvelous statement. Obviously, we could do no
more with apparently credible cases, reported by reputable medical men,
than to cite author and source and leave the matter there, where our
responsibility must end.

But where our proper responsibility seemed likely never to end was in
carrying out the enormous labor requisite for a reasonable certainty
that we had omitted no searching that might lead to undiscovered facts,
ancient or modern. Choice in selection is always, of course, an affair
de gustibus, and especially when, like the present, there is
considerable embarrassment of riches, coupled with the purpose of
compressing our results in one handy volume. In brief, it may be said
that several years of exhaustive research have been spent by us in the
great medical libraries of the United States and Europe in collecting
the material herewith presented. If, despite of this, omissions and
errors are to be found, we shall be grateful to have them pointed out.
It must be remembered that limits of space have forbidden satisfactory
discussion of the cases, and the prime object of the whole work has
been to carefully collect and group the anomalies and curiosities, and
allow the reader to form his own conclusions and make his own
deductions.

As the entire labor in the preparation of the forelying volume, from
the inception of the idea