Great numbers of people, especially medical men, have written to me
asking me to continue the short studies of great men of the past that I
began in _Post Mortem_; and the result is the present volume.
Many reviewers complained that _Post Mortem_ contained too much “medical
jargon,” whatever that may mean. There is doubtfully such a thing as
medical jargon; it is merely a method of expressing thoughts for which
there is no English equivalent except by the method of a cumbrous
sentence. For that reason I have tried to translate my thoughts into
English whenever it is possible. If by mischance a technical term should
have crept in, you will find most medical terms in any decent modern
English dictionary; or failing that, they are all simply taken from the
Greek. But there is another jargon than medical. There is the filthy
jargon which insists on saying “the Red Plague” when we mean syphilis; or
“in a certain interesting condition” when we mean to say “pregnant.”
That jargon I absolutely refuse to use. Those elderly people with fixed
minds who prefer that sort of thing had better stick to _Little Arthur_
or something equally fictitious. As a doctor writing on very serious
subjects I must claim the doctor’s privilege of writing with absolute
frankness; without suspicion of coarseness.
And I beg you not to accept as diagnoses what are sheer speculations.