PREPARATION FOR THE STUDY OF BIOCHEMISTRY 29 



return the greatest interest in the form of efficient work on the part of 

 this very complex machine, a human being? (Given, of course the 

 incalculable psychological asset of good-will.) This is the type of 

 problem with which the allied governments and Germany were recently 

 grappling and in proportion as we can contribute to its answer we 

 are assisting not merely to guide civilization and humanity safely 

 through the most dangerous crisis of all its long history, but also to 

 solve a perennial problem which the War merely rendered acute a 

 little earlier than would otherwise have been the case, the problem, 

 namely, of correlating production and distribution with the fluctuating 

 needs of the scattered populations of the world. The specialization 

 of the occupations of peoples and areas which has so characterized 

 the development of civilization in the past century carries with it 

 inherent dangers which approach more and more near as the process 

 of specialization extends. The specialized individual is always depen- 

 dent upon others for his support. The specialized city or nation is 

 dependent upon the world. The mutual dependency of peoples which 

 our multifarious modern activities has evoked compels attention, in 

 widely separated parts of the world, to the needs of remote and alien 

 workers. These needs are chemical in their basis and biochemistry 

 alone can supply us with the exact knowledge which is necessary to 

 adjust them. 



