2d. The _facts_ and observations in this work, in addition to what is already known, form a very numerous series. I shall not give an analysis of them; the reader will supply it, how little soever he may know of works on Anatomy and Physiology. Experiments on living animals, trials with different reagents on organized textures,[1] dissection, examinations after death, observations upon man in health and disease, these are sources whence I have drawn them, and they are the sources of nature. I have not, however, neglected authors, those especially who make the science of the animal economy a science of facts and experiments. [1] I have in this and every other instance translated the French word _tissu_ by the English word _texture_. I know many writers have adopted the French term, but I think it unnecessary, to say the least, to employ a foreign word, when one of our own language can be used with quite as much precision. _Tr._ I will make but one remark upon the experiments contained in this work; amongst them will be found a series upon the simple textures, which I subjected successively to desiccation, putrefaction, maceration, ebullition, stewing, and to the action of the acids and the alkalies. It will be easily seen, that it was not the object of these experiments to determine the composition, or ascertain the different elements, and consequently give a chemical analysis of simple textures; for this purpose they would have been insufficient; but their object was to establish the distinctive characters of these simple textures, to show that each has a peculiar organization, as each has a peculiar life, and to prove by the different results which they gave, that the division which I have adopted is not speculative, but that it rests upon the diversity of their intimate structure. The different re-agents, which I used, were only to assist me where the scalpel was insufficient, and on this account, therefore, I presume these experiments will have some influence upon Anatomy.