In planning the second volume of the Annual Review of Nutrition the Editorial Committee has adhered to the intention that guided selection of topics for the initial volume—to display the wide scope of the subject through "critical, authoritative surveys of the original literature describing the current developments in the science of nutrition." As the complexity and breadth of nutrition cannot be explored fully in a single volume, we plan to concentrate on the major aspects of the field in turn, cycling at multi-year intervals to reassess topics reviewed in the past. Matters of immediate interest, or in which rapid advance is currently taking place, will be reviewed promptly.

Since the production process at Annual Reviews does not enable us to co-position related chapters within each volume, our dual Table of Contents displays both the usual sequence of chapters by page number, and related chapters grouped by category of interest. For the convenience of the reader, the categorical Table of Contents for the current volume also lists the chapters of Volume 1.

The continued excitement of discovery in the science of nutrition is evident to the reader of these reviews. Equally clear is the satisfying evidence of the vast improvement in health care, preventive medicine, and therapy that is occurring through assimilation into practice of the basic scientific understanding generated by research—experimental, observational, chemical, and genetic, whether in vivo, in vitro, clinical, or epidemiologic.

The opening chapter of this second volume is timely because its publication coincides with that of several recent accounts of the long evolution of the understanding of pellagra. Dr. William Bean's essay brings the reader a series of fascinating personal reflections concerning the elucidation of this clinical syndrome. It is written by a scholar who was associated with two prolific centers of study (Birmingham and Cincinnati) from which came notes, papers, and observations that contributed to definition of the role(s) of B-vitamins in clinical nutrition. Dr. Bean's recollections of and reflections on human experimentation provide much ethical wisdom for today's investigator of newly recognized syndromes of nutritional origin. Readers who enjoy perusing this essay will also want to reread Dr. Bean's 1952 Presidential Address to the American Society of Clinical Nutrition (The Clinician Interrogates Nutrition. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 13:263-74), including its text of the Pellagra Song.

The Editors are grateful both to the authors who have so generously contributed to this second volume and to the staff of Annual Reviews Inc. for their painstaking efforts throughout the planning and production of Volume 2.

William J. Darby

Harry P. Broquist

Robert E. Olson