The study of hormones is one of the great unifying threads running
through modern biology, extending all the way from botany through
marine zoology to clinical medicine, and with the active participation of
chemistry at almost every stage but the earliest. For this very reason,
however, the data and materials dealing with hormones have been pub-
lished in widely scattered journals. While some parts of the subject
have already been brought together in review form, in no place has a
comprehensive presentation, at the research level, been assembled. It
is the purpose of this treatise to bring together the great scattered mass
of information covering the roles of hormones in a wide diversity of vital
processes, and their pathological as well as normal physiology. For this
purpose the Editors have been fortunate in having the collaboration of
a group of authors, each one an expert and an active investigator in his
particular field. The experimentalism essential to our advancing
knowledge, therefore, receives full emphasis, while practical applications,
particularly in applied biology and medicine, have been brought in
wherever possible.

The division of the treatise into two volumes is largely a matter of
convenience rather than of principle. The first volume contains the
chemistry of the hormones, the role of hormones in organisms other
than mammals, and some aspects of the animal physiology. The second
volume will contain the bulk of the mammalian endocrinology proper,
with clinical applications.

In regard to minutiae such as terminology and spelling, some attempt
has been made to attain uniformity but this has not been pressed.
Where so wide a circle of collaborators is involved, some variation in
usage is unavoidable. American spelling has been adhered to through-
out, but beyond this the reader must accept some variability. Since
no general and completely accepted steroid nomenclature is in use (see
Chapter XIII) the Editors have left the final decisions to the individual
authors. Certain variations in nomenclature will, therefore, be appar-
ent, but these are in our opinion of minor importance.

The Editors sincerely hope that this work will make a contribution
to the orderly assemblage of knowledge that is essential to scholarship
and understanding in a widely ramified branch of science.

June 15, 1948

GREGORY PINCUS

KENNETH V. THIMANN

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