Foreword 



Five years ago the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council 

 contracted with the Wright Air Development Center, United States Air Force, to 

 gather and compile for publication the more basic established data in the various 

 fields of biological science. The present work, issued in August, 1954, under joint 

 sponsorship of the Air Force, Army, Navy, and Atomic Energy Commission as 

 Wright Air Development Center Technical Report 52-301, is the second fascicle 

 resulting from the project. 



Direction of the work was entrusted to the Committee on the Handbook of 

 Biological Data, an organ of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. The 

 Institute is affiliated with the National Research Council as a unit in the Council's 

 Division of Biology and Agriculture. Membership of the Committee is represent- 

 ative of major fields in plant and animal biology. 



Seeking highest degree of authoritativeness for the work, the Committee 

 recognized that specialists in a field from which a table is drawn can best exercise 

 the critical judgment necessary to evaluate and select data for an authoritative table. 

 The specialist can best identify those data born of most acceptable methods of meas- 

 urement and those having greatest likelihood, or actual history, of reproducibility 

 in competent hands. The Committee accordingly prescribed that in selection and 

 review of data broadest collaboration be sought aunong investigators in nutrition, 

 metabolism, and related fields. 



This monograph is the product of contributions of more than 800 specialists 

 in these fields in this country and abroad. Its 160 tables, as originally compiled, 

 were subjected to extensive review by experts in the respective subjects. By this 

 procedure it has been possible to strip from the tables most of the controversial or 

 questionable or borderline material, leaving for final presentation to the user only 

 what is presently accepted as fact by those who are competent to judge. The 223 

 pages of tables and 16 pages of diagrams contain many thousands of items of authori- 

 tative data--mostly quantitative, but with important non-numerical exceptions. The 

 task of culling and condensing the mass of data on hand to conform with time and 

 space limitations has been gigantic. It is planned that much that has beensoelimi - 

 nated will be published in subsequent fascicles or in the final Handbook of Biological 

 Data. 



Acknowledgment is made, on behalf of the Committee, to Wright Air Develop- 

 ment Center, Office of the Surgeon General of the Army, Office of Naval Research, 

 and Division of Biology and Medicine, Atomic Energy Commission, for the foresight 

 and scientific judgment inherent in the commission to prepare this tabular mono- 

 graph; to the biologists of this and other countries whose generous devotion of timie 

 as contributors and reviewers has made possible completion of the work as it stands; 

 and to many others, unlisted, who have given the Committee solicited advice. Ac- 

 knowledgment is also made to present and former members of the Handbook Staff for 

 their loyalty and devotion to a most tedious and exacting job. 



♦The first, "Standard Values in Blood", was published in 1952. Others in progress 

 deal with the fields of growth and reproduction, animal and plant physiology, bio- 

 chemical composition, and toxicology. An abridged Handbook of Biological Data 

 containing tabular information drawn from all areas of biological science is also in 

 preparation. 



HI 



