[8] _A New Theory of Physick_ (London, 1725), p. 56. [9] Biberg was a Swedish naturalist and had studied botany under Linnaeus in Uppsala; Réaumur, a French botanist, had contributed papers to the _Philosophical Transactions_ of the Royal Society in London. [10] _The Power of Water-Dock against the Scurvy whether in the Plain Root or Essence...._ (London, 1765), had been published six months earlier than _Hypochondriasis_ and had earned Hill a handsome profit. [11] I have treated aspects of this subject in my article, "Matt Bramble and The Sulphur Controversy in the XVIIIth Century: Medical Background of _Humphry Clinker_," _JHI_, XXVIII (1967), 577-90. [12] See, for example, Jeremiah Waineright, _A Mechanical Account of the Non-Naturals_ (1707); John Arbuthnot, _An Essay Concerning the Effects of Air on Human Bodies_ (1733); Frank Nichols, _De Anima Medica_ (1750). [13] Hill's correspondence is not published but shall be printed as an appendix to my forthcoming biography. [14] I have discussed some of these works in connection with the medical background of John Wesley's _Primitive Physick_ (1747). See G. S. Rousseau, _Harvard Library Bulletin_, XVI (1968), 242-56. [15] It is difficult to know with certainty when Hill first became interested in the herb. He mentions it in passing in _The British Herbal_ (1756), I, 526 and may have sold it as early as 1742 when he opened an apothecary shop. [16] Reid's dissertation at Edinburgh, entitled _De Insania_ (1798), contains materials on the relationship of the imagination to all forms of mental disturbance. Secondary literature on hypochondria is plentiful. Works include: R. H. Gillespie, _Hypochondria_ (London, 1928), William K. Richmond, _The English Disease_ (London, 1958), Charles Chenevix Trench, _The Royal Malady_ (New York, 1964), and Ilza Vieth, _Hysteria: The History of a Disease_ (Chicago, 1965), and "On Hysterical and Hypochondriacal Afflictions," _Bulletin of the History of Medicine_, XXX (1956), 233-40. [17] Joseph Spence, _Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books and Men_, ed. James M. Osborn (Oxford, 1966), I, 264. I am indebted to A. D. Morris, M.D., F.R.S.M., for help of various sorts in writing this introduction. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE The text of this facsimile of _Hypochondriasis_ is reproduced from a copy in the Library of the Royal Society of Medicine, London. HYPOCHONDRIASIS. A PRACTICAL TREATISE, &c. HYPOCHONDRIASIS. SECT. I. The NATURE of the DISORDER. To call the Hypochondriasis a fanciful malady, is ignorant and cruel. It is a real, and a sad disease: an obstruction of the spleen by thickened and distempered blood; extending itself often to the liver, and other parts; and unhappily is in England very frequent: physick scarce knows one more fertile in ill; or more difficult of cure.