228 A BIOMETRIC STUDY OF BASAL METABOLISM IN MAN. 



heat-production for any individual, requires merely the substitution 

 of the actually measured weight, stature, and age. The tabling of 

 these equations for a range of body-weight, stature, and age which will 

 be encountered in practice results in a multiple-prediction normal 

 standard, or an adult standard normal, with which the observed basal 

 metabolism (daily heat-production) of individual subjects may be 

 compared. While the standard values are so arranged as to facilitate 

 the comparison of individual subjects the reader must remember that 

 because of the great variability of metabolism from subject to subject 

 a comparison of a single subject of any special class furnishes a very 

 slender basis for generalization concerning that class. It is only when 

 reasonably consistent results are obtained from series of individual 

 comparisons that generalizations can satisfactorily be drawn. 



The validity of these formulas has been exhaustively tested in 

 comparison with the methods hitherto employed in calorimetry in the 

 section devoted to the body-surface law. It has there been shown 

 that, when applied to the individual subjects of the largest series of 

 basal metabolism data yet secured by a single group of observers, these 

 formulas give the most satisfactory prediction of the basal metabolism 

 of an unknown subject of any method hitherto employed. With certain 

 reservations concerning the range of age over which these formulas may 

 be legitimately applied, we have the highest confidence in their validity. 



2. TABLES OF MULTIPLE PREDICTION STANDARD METABOLISM 



CONSTANTS. 



For the convenience of those who have to estimate the metabolism 

 of subjects from physical characteristics either in the clinical ward or 

 in the physiological laboratory, we have prepared tables of the values 

 of these equations for the various grades of body-weight, stature, and 

 age. The form adopted for these tables has been determined by purely 

 practical considerations. Because of the large number of permutations 

 of weight, stature, and age, it is obviously out of the question to publish 

 constants for each possible combination of these characters; but two 

 tables of constants may be constructed from which the worker may 

 obtain the most probable metabolism of a man (i.e., the average 

 metabolism of a group of individuals of like weight, stature, and age) 

 by simply adding together the entrj^ for body-weight in table I and 

 that for stature and age in table II. For women the comparable 

 entries in tables III and IV will be used. 



These tables have been constructed to be entered by body-weight 

 recorded to the nearest tenth of a kilogram, stature recorded to the 

 nearest centimeter, and age to the nearest year. In following this 

 course we have been under no illusions concerning these physical meas- 

 urements, but have used the units which have become conventional 

 among physiologists. A measurement of stature to the nearest centi- 



