As I passed southward on my journey, I left, March, 1846, my manuscript in the hands of Wiley & Putnam, in N. York:[4] to be published at my expense. During the six months in which I was absent on my travels, my book was published; and the publishers sent copies, as directed by me, to many of my personal friends, and to several physicians. They sent other copies, which procured notices, some of which were favorable, particularly one from the _London Critic_, and others, the reverse. As few copies of the book sold, I was not remunerated for the cost of publication. The copies sent to physicians were mostly unacknowledged--received in cold, if not contemptuous, silence. But my family physician, the worthy and learned Dr. Robbins, to whom I dedicated the work, ever upheld me. He answered my questions, gave me instructions, and showed me post-mortem dissections; and to those who asked him if he believed in my theory, he wisely replied, "Mrs. Willard is right as far as she goes." He knew that I made no pretensions to understand the vast variety of medical subjects not connected with the circulation, and that I never doubted his skill or disputed his prescriptions. An honest man, and a skilful physician, he deserved and had my unfailing confidence. And if, by reason of what I knew, I had prolonged my life, he had the longer kept a good and faithful patient. Lady-friends, to whom I had sent my work, had sometimes referred it to their medical advisers; and thus Dr. Hiester, an eminent physician of Reading, Pa., became a believer. And in the same way, the eminent Dr. Cartwright, then of Natchez, and President of the State Medical Association of Mississippi, came to a knowledge of those principles, which, as we shall hereafter show, he so remarkably elucidated. In September, 1846, the _New York Journal of Medicine_, then edited by Dr. Charles A. Lee, contained a review or critique on my work, which, if the history of the theory shall hereafter become a matter of special interest, may, with my reply, contained in the March number of 1847, furnish any examiner with the full state of the question at that period.