PREFACE 



This book was prepared in an attempt to make the latest results of investigation 

 in various lines of bacteriology and immunology available for students and active 

 workers. It does not purport in any sense to be a textbook, nor does it pretend to be 

 a comprehensive survey of the whole field. Our object has been primarily to obtain 

 authoritative critical reviews of topics in which at the present time interest is par- 

 ticularly keen or investigation most active. It is our hope that the book will serve to 

 promote research both by furnishing landmarks of progress and by affording sugges- 

 tions on significant unsolved problems. 



With these ends in view, great latitude has been given to the individual contrib- 

 utors, each of whom assumes direct responsibility for the material presented. While 

 the editors have endeavored to avoid serious duplication and overlapping, they have 

 in a number of cases intentionally asked for and included papers with opposing views 

 and interpretations in order to set clearly before the reader the divergences of cur- 

 rent opinion. 



This independence of treatment has even extended to such a matter as the no- 

 menclature of microbic types and species. It was early found in our preliminary cor- 

 respondence that many of our contributors had very strong convictions regarding 

 nomenclatorial practice, and that their convictions were widely apart. Since we did 

 not ourselves feel that the time had arrived for insistence upon a uniform and rigid 

 bacterial nomenclature, we chose to give full rein to individual preference. While 

 we are aware that this course is open to criticism, we believe that our decision will 

 at least serve to bring into yet stronger relief the almost hopeless confusion and di- 

 vergence of opinion into which classification and names of bacteria have fallen. 



We considered it an important feature of our undertaking that the individual arti- 

 cles should come to hand as nearly as possible at the same time in order to insure 

 promptness and timeliness of publication. We are greatly indebted to our contributors 

 for their generally hearty response to this request. Many of them have been able to 

 comply with this condition only at serious personal inconvenience and even sacrifice. 

 In a few instances illness has interfered with the preparation of an intended manu- 

 script. Several of our European correspondents who originally promised articles have 

 failed to send anything. 



We are under particular obligation to the Board of Trustees of the University of 

 Chicago and to Mr. Gordon J. Laing, director of the University Press, for aiding the 

 publication of this volume with a special fund. Among the many individuals who 

 have given us signal assistance, we wish to acknowledge special indebtedness to Mr. 

 Donald P. Bean and Miss Anabel Ireland, of the University Press, and to Miss 

 Theodora Piatt, of the Department of Hygiene and Bacteriology, for their efficient 

 and untiring interest in seeing the book through the press. 



The Editors 



February 15, 1928 



