A physician and medical reformer enthused by the scientific and cultural progress of the Enlightenment as it took hold in Britain, Thomas Percival (1740–1804) wrote on many topics, including public health and demography. His influential publication on medical ethics is considered the first modern formulation. In 1807, his son Edward published this four-volume collection of his father's diverse work. Some of the items here had never been published before, including a selection of Percival's private correspondence and a biographical account written by Edward. Volume 1 contains this biography and the full text of Percival's popular self-improvement book, A Father's Instructions, originally intended for his own children and then published in three parts between 1775 and 1800. His Medical Ethics (1803) and Essays Medical and Experimental (revised edition, 1772–3) have been reissued separately in this series.