During more than ten years the author has been presenting the subject of nutrition and dietetics to classes of undergraduates in medicine and to the nurses of two large city hospitals.

Both lecturer and students have found much valuable literature for reference, notably such works as Thompson's "Practical Dietetics" and the publications on nutrition and dietetics issued by the Government Experiment Stations.

There has been a repeated request for a concise text-book suitable not only for undergraduates and nurses, but also for the general practitioner, and covering the whole field of nutrition and dietetics. But no such book seemed available.

Any rational and strictly scientific system of dietetics must necessarily be based upon the most recent researches on animal nutrition. Hence a text-book of dietetics should contain a brief statement of the laws of nutrition.

To devote a large part of the volume to recipes seems wholly unnecessary, as the physician does not need them and the nurse already has them in her books of recipes, so called.

The little volume here presented is the growth of a decade of teaching, and represents practically the course as now given to undergraduates and nurses by the author and his associates, and in it we trust that a real need is supplied.

The author takes this opportunity to acknowledge the valuable contribution to the volume made by Joseph Brennemann, Ph.B.,

M.D., Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, Northwestern University Medical School. Professor Brennemann prepared Chapters XII and XIII, on Infant Feeding in Health and in Disease. Valuable assistance was also received from Miss Helen Hammel, former dietitian at Wesley Hospital, in the preparation of Appendix I, on Recipes.

Winfield S. Hall.

Chicago, December, 1909.