vi author's preface 



had been produced of the uniform chemical nature of respiration. 

 Neither were methods sufhciently developed, and on that 

 account the biochemical study of plant respiration was rendered 

 extremely difficult. However, as soon as the way was made 

 fairly smooth, most investigators devoted their attention 

 particularly to the chemical nature of the respiratory processes, 

 and during the past two decades there appeared numerous 

 accounts of research in this field, in which experimental work 

 on the biological side of respiration and on the influence of 

 external factors was left in the background. This is thoroughly 

 comprehensible. The aim of physiology consists in reducing 

 all living phenomena to physical and chemical processes and, 

 whenever possible, in explaining them by the laws of these two 

 basic sciences. 



This book seeks to do what has not yet been done, so far as 

 my knowledge of the literature goes, namely, to portray the 

 modern, outstanding features of the science of plant respiration, 

 and to consider carefully the whole biochemical side of the 

 problem from a uniform standpoint. In addition I have endeav- 

 ored to describe the methods in such a way that this book may 

 serve as a guide to experimental studies of plant respiration. 

 This appears to me to be fundamentally desirable because the 

 competent treatment by Palladin and Kostychev in Abder- 

 halden's "Handbuch der biochemischen Arbeitsmethoden " 

 appeared 14 years ago and so is not wholly up-to-date on some 

 points. 



S. Kostychev. 



PeterJwf, U.S.S.R. 

 July, 1924. 



