Vol. 8, 1922 
PATHOLOGY: PEARL AND BACON 
127 
not significantly correlated with age. The same is also true of Index C. 
With the exception of the white groups with active tuberculous lesions, 
which show no sensible correlations of this index with age, there is gen- 
erally a significant positive correlation of Index D with age. Index E ex- 
hibits a relatively high, and in general certainly significant negative cor- 
relation with age. Index F is not correlated with age. Inasmuch as the 
material included all ages from infancy to extreme old age, these correla- 
tional results with age have a general biological significance. They indicate 
that, so far as the present material may be trusted to portray general 
relationships, the functional balance of certain organs, notably the heart 
and spleen, changes throughout life in an orderly manner, capable of ex- 
pression by mathematical equations. Such regression equations, which 
are throughout linear in character, were computed for all cases where the 
correlation coefficients were significant, and made the basis of later cor- 
rections of the biometric constants of the indices, to allow for the influence 
of age. 
A detailed study of the relation of race (white or colored) to the values of 
the several organ weight indices, after proper corrections had been made for 
the influence of age, leads to the general result that where there are no 
lesions in either of the organs involved in an index and where the number 
of cases is large enough to give reliable results, there is, broadly speaking, 
no difference between white and colored racial groups in either mean or 
variability, except in the case of Indices B and D. In these cases it is 
only the means and not the relative variabilities that differ. In both 
cases it is the colored group that has the higher value for the indices. 
In general there are no significant differences betv/een the sexes in either 
mean values or variability of the indices, after proper corrections have 
been made for the influence of age. In these organ-weight indices we are 
evidently dealing with fundamental functional characteristics of the organ- 
ism, which express in a hitherto unnoted way the extraordinary regulatory 
powers which are in a profound manner associated with the maintenance of 
life. The absolute weights of the several viscera may differ widely in the 
different races and sexes, but the ratios of these same viscera, in respect of 
weight, appear from the present experience to have a constancy and sta- 
bility biometrically, which, broadly speaking, entirely transcends the in- 
fluence of race and sex. 
After making proper corrections for differences in the age distributions of 
the groups involved, the question of the influence of tuberculosis per se 
upon the organ-weight indices was attacked. This problem was approached 
in several ways of which the most significant was to compare two groups of 
which one contained only cases wherein the sole significant lesions at 
death were those of tuberculosis, while the other contained cases where in 
addition to the tuberculous lesions present (active or inactive) were 
