274 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



bureaus do secure uniformity in the general methods of treatment and 

 tabulation — a factor of prime importance in the consecutive presenta- 

 tion of correlated researches. 



Since the correlation of research is of fundamental consequence, 

 continuity in the development of thought and line of attack in the 

 various problems is highly desirable. In perhaps no other way does 

 the Nutrition Laboratory differ more from the usual university 

 laboratory than in this general plan. Resident voluntary assistants 

 and research cooperators of proved merit are, of course, welcome, but 

 intermittent, temporary workers almost invariably require more ad- 

 ministrative care than several well-planned and continuous researches 

 carried out by the regular staff and collaborators. In many university 

 laboratories the temporary assistant and volunteer worker must be 

 the main reliance for research M'^ork ; but it is clear from past experience 

 that, in a research institution like the Nutrition Laboratory, such 

 work is usually fragmentary, and that any value it may have is by no 

 means commensurate with either the administrative or editorial time 

 devoted to it. In a laboratory such as this the backbone of progress is 

 coordinated, correlated research. 



As an example of the desirabiUty of coordination in research we may 

 cite the alcohol program which was prepared in this laboratory and issued 

 January 1, 1913. This program was not intended to be the statement 

 of an experhnental inquiry for the completion of which the Laboratory 

 is obligated, but was presented with the hope that it would suggest 

 profitable lines of articulated research in a considerable number of 

 laboratories and institutions whose facilities and interests particularly 

 fit them for undertaking the various problems. "While the Nutrition 

 Laboratory is committed to a continuation of the investigation, and 

 while definite arrangements have been formulated to make the alcohol 

 investigations, either on the physiological or on the psychological side, a 

 substantial part of each year's work, it is inconceivable that any one or a 

 dozen laboratories can adequately complete this program in a decade. 



No major projects in addition to those outlined subsequently in 

 this report are contemplated. With the present staff but slight modifi- 

 cations and additions should be needed to carry out, for several years, 

 well-coordinated series of researches. As the period of organization 

 and of the development of technique and novel apparatus necessary 

 for studying the phases of human physiology which this laboratory 

 emphasizes, namely, bio-energetics, is practically over, the present 

 administrative problem is so to adjust the research work as to meet the 

 demands of pure physiology on the one hand and those of pathology on 

 the other. Since little in the way of precedent was available to assist 

 materially in studying many points, it is perhaps not surprising that 

 seven years have been required to adjust the Laboratory to this definite 

 experimental plan. 



