GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF GROWTH-PROCESS 477 



BRITISH MALES. 



Weight in ounces. 

 Age of infant 



in months. Observed. Calculated. 



1 147 148 



2 169 171 



3 ........< 194 194 



4 . . 219 216 



5 234 235 



6 252 252 



7 269 266 



8 276 277 



9 . 283 287 



The equation for the same period in females is represented by: 



logio = 0.106(t - 1.54) 



BRITISH FEMALES. 



Age of infant 

 in months. 



1 



2 



In all cases it will be seen that the agreement between the observed 

 and the calculated weights is extremely close; in fact such consonance 

 between the quantitative demands of a theoretical equation and the 

 experimental estimations is not frequently obtained even in experi- 

 ments conducted in laboratory-glassware. The probable reasons for 

 the extreme regularity observed lie in the first place in the large number 

 of measurements from which each average weight is computed and in 

 the second place in the excellent conditions of thermostasis which the 

 body of a warm-blooded animal affords. 



Even in such complex Metazoa as man, therefore, the process of 

 growth in an individual growth-cycle appears to be determined and 

 governed by the simple law which is characteristic of an Autocatalyzed 

 Monomolecular Reaction. It will at once occur to the reader, however, 

 that the process of growth, taken as a whole, cannot possibly be of 

 this simplicity, for in the construction of the simplest of the multi- 

 tudinous constituents of tissues a variety of parallel and successive 

 chemical reactions must as a rule contribute to the result. The 

 diversity of interdependent chemical phenomena involved in the 

 building up of an organism so complicated as ourselves must be almost 

 unimaginably great. How, then, can a reaction-formula characteristic 

 of a single and uncomplicated transformation, peculiar only in produc- 

 ing its own catalyzer, apply to the quantitative outcome of such a 

 bewildering tissue of chemical events? 



