iv EDITOR'S PREFATORY NOTE 



2. A treatise systematically planned by the editors but composed with 

 the collaboration of a large body of scholars, including both clinical and 

 laboratory workers from different sections of the United States and Can- 

 ada. 



3. Especial attention to the needs of the general practitioner while 

 at the same time supplying the scientific foundation for clinical work and 

 data indispensable to laboratory workers investigating metabolic and endo- 

 crine domains. 



4. A selected bibliography that will permit any reader easily to con- 

 sult the original articles that are the sources of existent knowledge. 



The editor and his associates have been much gratified by the ready 

 and hearty cooperation of the distinguished body of contributors who have 

 composed the work. The energy and enthusiasm of these writers has done 

 much to lighten the labors of both editors and publishers and to assure 

 them of the timeliness of the project. 



At a time like this when the cost of paper and of printing is almost 

 prohibitive it would seem essential that the contents of books that are 

 published should be correspondingly more valuable. This is no time for 

 indiscriminate publication of cursory observations or untested ideas. On 

 the contrary, publication should be strictly limited to concise and accurate 

 presentations of the most important subjects. So much speculative non- 

 sense has been written of late upon metabolic and especially upon endo- 

 crine topics that there is great need for critical sifting and for conservative 

 pronouncements of judgment by competent workers in order that fields 

 that should be fair may be kept free of weeds. 



It was our intention, at first, to append to each single article a selected 

 list of references to the bibliography, a method that undoubtedly adds 

 value to the article and permits its writer clearly to indicate sources other 

 than his own work. It was soon found, however, that this method would 

 involve such a vast amount of repetition of references as unduly to expand 

 tlio space that could bo allotted to bibliography. At the risk of doing vio- 

 lence to the value of the single articles, and against the protest of a few 

 of our most valued contributors who feared that the omission of specific 

 reference numerals by which the authority for certain statements could be 

 readily identified might lay them open to the charge of failure to give due 

 credit to other workers, it was decided that, on the whole, the interests of 

 readers would bo best served by publishing all the bibliographic references, 

 arranged in groups, in a separate volume. Objections can be raised to 



