PREFACE. 



In carrying out the work underlying this volume we have attempted 

 to do more than to treat the available data for the basal metabolism 

 of normal men, women and children by a method which is practically 

 new in its application to human physiology; we have endeavored to 

 make this investigation a prototype of that specialization in methods 

 and cooperation in problems which we believe will be characteristic 

 of the best scientific work of the future. We are convinced that this 

 cooperation of specialists of widely dissimilar training is the only means 

 by which science can attain both the height of refinement of measure- 

 ment and analysis and the breadth of comparison and interpretation 

 which is essential to continued progress. 



The measurements considered in this volume have been made 

 possible by the painstaking cooperation of a score or more fellow- 

 workers, all of whom are connected or have been associated with the 

 Nutrition Laboratory. How large their contribution has been will be 

 evident from the names of the observers in the protocols of data and 

 from the references to earlier publications scattered through the follow- 

 ing pages. The exacting clerical and arithmetical work has been carried 

 out at Cold Spring Harbor by the Misses Gavin, Holmes, Lockwood, 

 and Peckham, who deserve the highest praise for the energy and care 

 which they have devoted to this task. We are indebted to Major 

 C. B. Davenport, Director, for permission to have this work carried 

 out at the Station for Experimental Evolution. Finally it is a great 

 pleasure to acknowledge our indebtedness to our associate, Professor 

 W. R. Miles, who went over the first draft of the manuscript with us 

 and offered many helpful suggestions, and to Mr. W. H. Leslie, in 

 charge of the computing division at the Nutrition Laboratory, who has 

 aided in correcting the proofs. 



In taking up this work over two years ago, the authors fully recog- 

 nized that the data must be wholly rearranged and interpreted as the 

 statistical constants might indicate without any regard to opinions 

 heretofore expressed from the Laboratory. Practically all of the con- 

 clusions already drawn at the Nutrition Laboratory have been fully 

 substantiated by the statistical constants, and it is naturally a source 

 of satisfaction that so little of the ground already held has had to be 

 given up as a result of a wholly independent analysis from the outside. 



This original conviction has been strictly adhered to, and every 

 effort has been made to have the treatment physiologically sound 

 throughout. We have endeavored to carry the analysis of the data to 

 the practicable limits of the biometric formulas, at the same time pre- 

 serving all that is of value in the older and simpler methods of treat- 



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