It has often been held of questionable propriety, whether the public should be furnished with medical readings, it being presumed that such literature tended to thwart the very purposes it professed to encourage: that, instead of affording an exposition of the ills of our nature, whereby we might avoid or remove them, its effect necessarily, from the probable absence of all preliminary medical knowledge on the part of the reader, was but to create confusion and alarm, and, even where understood, only to magnify the fear; and this latter notion is grounded on the popular error, that even professional men, from the same cause, are least efficient when in attendance upon themselves. The doubt, however, may now be considered as removed if we but observe how of late years the desire to possess general information on all matters relative to the functions of life, has manifested itself, by the public attendance at the various learned institutions, and how also it has been encouraged by men eminent for their talents and worth, devoting themselves to the unfolding and simplification of the professional lore they had been years in acquiring. Lectures have been given, and large crowds of silent and anxious auditors have attended them—edition after edition of popular works on similar subjects, by the same men, have been called for, and eagerly caught up—the mysteries of physiology have been laid open from the lowest to the highest scale of creation: the history of man has been displayed, and his several elements have been demonstrated—the phenomena of respiration, digestion, and the circulation of the blood, have all had their share of attention, and many of the most prevalent diseases of humanity have been discussed and examined, their causes exposed, and the means of their avoidance detailed. So far from the public suffering from this diffusion of medical knowledge, immense advantages have accrued to all classes of mankind. Among all the departments of anatomical research thus introduced, public decorum has judiciously excluded popular enquiries into the physiological laws of generation. I say judiciously, for the discussion of such topics, constituted as society is, could not be tolerated in large assemblies, and probably of both sexes, without the risk of engendering associations inimical to morality and virtue;[1] but no one can be blind to the creeping progress there is daily being made, of touching upon these subjects in popular journals and publications, and no one can deny at least the importance of obedience to the laws that abide over the procreation of a healthy or diseased population. In the absence of information afforded through legitimate channels to the public, and feeling sensible that many errors are committed through ignorance, and endured through shame, this little work is tendered, accompanied with the hope that its usefulness may not be deteriorated by any misinterpretation of the writer’s motives.