Excerpt from A German-English Medical Thesaurus: Or Treasure of Single and Compound Medical Words and Terms, With Dialogues, Idiomatic Phrases and Proverbs, Etc;, Etc

From the frequent inquiries coming ta me cdncerning the nature of a convenient manual like the following, I could not mistake the suggestion, that a book of this, kind was'a great desideratum. By the advice of a few friends, whom I consulted regarding this subject, and from the in creasing conviction that the book was positively needed, I felt encouraged to undertake the work, although the task of writing such a book seemed to me not altogether without difficulty. The success Of my Improved Method and Com plete Manual for the Systematic and Practical Study of the German Language, however, filled me with confidence, giving me also the sure and true basis for the practical con struction Of this work. In regard to the various parts of the book, much labor was necessary for the information I desired to present, and to what extent this had to be done, can be judged from the manifold contents of the book, dem onstrating also that the parts and subjects treated, were what the scope of such a work seemed to demand. The German and English indexes alone contain over twenty thou sand words. For accurate and convenient reference I have added, at the close of the book, the complete schedule of declensions and list Of irregular verbs of my German Gram mar. The reason for making this addition arose from the conviction that if persons studying or having studied the German Language, on the one hand, can classify a noun at sight by looking at the schedule of the terminations of each declension, in as much as there are four different classes of declensions in German, after which the nouns must be declined, wherefore every representative noun in this work has attached the number of the respective class Of declension, to which it belongs; and on the other hand such persons also know the irregular verbs and can readily refer by looking at the schedules of conjugations Of these verbs, 'to the various changes they undergo in the processof conjugation in the various tenses, etc., they certainly have overcome two of the foremost difficulties in the study of this language. To study a language effectively and suc cessfully is to study its various parts Of speech. Though these are nominally the same in German as in English, there is still a vast difference in the extent Of the study these various parts require in order to become familiar with them for ready comprehension in reading and in speaking the language. The study of the German articles, for in stance, the first of the ten parts of speech, requires infinitely more study in German than in English, because in English there is but one article for the three genders, masculine, fem inine and neuter, but in German every gender has a Special article which is declined differently in each Of the four cases, Nominative, Genitive, Dative and Accusative in the singular. There are besides many definite words standing often in the place Of the definite articles, declined like these, and many indefinite words standing Often in place Of the indefinite articles, declined like these in the singular, but like the definite articles in the plural. To study thoroughly and successfully these and other complicated and difficult parts Of Speech in the German Language cannot be accom plished by so-called easy-phrase-object-picture-methods. There must be faithful and persistent study with the aid Of a thorough grammar, I am frank to say, like mine, not only the latest, but also the most complete in the market. And the pronunciation of the words of the German Language can only be acquired from the lips Of a competent teacher, a native German. It cannot be taught by parrot-method or burlesque sound-imitation in letters and words having no real existence and hanging merely like spiderwebs in the mind, etc.