The contents of the first four volumes of the Annual Review of Nutrition reflect the categories of most active research and current general interest. Additionally they identify and define subject areas that constitute the modern science of nutrition. The definition of this science has been much discussed and debated, owing in considerable measure to popularization of misconceptions through public media and politically oriented forums, as well as by the writings of nonscientists in semiscientific and pseudoscientific publications. The narrow, albeit detailed, interest of some members of the scientific community unacquainted with the extensive centuries-old history and the broad scope of the science of nutrition has sometimes furthered these misconceptions.

All of the scientific and scholarly activities that constitute nutrition have not been fully represented in the initial four volumes. Future volumes will gradually add legitimate subject areas and expand the comparative aspects of nutrition to include greater attention to domestic, marine, and aquatic animals; poultry and other avian species; nonhuman primates; and wild animals, especially those species in zoological gardens. Subsequent volumes will seek to identify more clearly the importance of the history of nutrition science. Other Annual Reviews (e.g. of Biochemistry, Physiology, Medicine, Public Health, Pharmacology and Toxicology) similarly depict the current concepts of their sciences and the active areas of advance. It is of interest to reflect that today's biochemistry, yesterday's physiological chemistry, evolved from physiology and from chemistry. Classical nutrition in the grand manner of Graham Lusk, H. C. Sherman, Lafayette B. Mendel, Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, and E. V. McCollum was a product of earlier contents of these sciences. Many of the basic nutrition interests and concepts emerged from application of chemistry to agriculture, which greatly influenced the classical period of the Wisconsin and Johns Hopkins developments in nutrition.

As noted by J. Murray Luck in his Foreword to Volume 1 of the Annual Review of Nutrition, the earlier volumes of the Annual Review of Biochemistry devoted appreciable space to nutrition. Subsequently, the chapters primarily concerned with nutrition disappeared. Nevertheless, a perusal of other current Annual Reviews reveals that related sciences continue to consider various aspects of the science of nutrition. This is evident from the related articles page that appears after the contents pages of each Nutrition volume, where we list reviews of interest to nutrition scientists but appearing in other Annual Reviews.

During the past two decades, a remarkable acceleration of the application of nutrition knowledge in medicine has stimulated interest and involvement in nutrition by physicians in all clinical specialties. This upsurge accounts for the diversity and number of chapters in the category of clinical nutrition included in the Annual Review of Nutrition series. The extent to which sophisticated nutrition knowledge is now continuously utilized by patients even in free-living situations is impressively demonstrated by the chapter on "Home Parenteral Nutrition" in this volume. At the same time, the excitement of discovery of new basic dietary essentials is illustrated in the reviews of trace elements.

The Annual Review of Nutrition was introduced in 1981, the 75th anniversary of the enactment of the Pure Food and Drug Law, during a time of heated debate concerning food and environmental protection. In his inaugural Foreword, J. Murray Luck noted those who "urge that our great uncle in Washington guarantee for us an environment that is totally risk-free, including the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe. I doubt that even Heaven provides a risk-free haven." Without addressing specific issues or the emotional politics of controls and regulatory activities, the prefatory essay in the present volume provides a scholarly, historical perspective on the evolution of regulatory activities pertaining to food. This essay by Peter Barton Hutt, one of the nation's most distinguished food and drug lawyers, formerly Chief Counsel of the Food and Drug Administration, can profitably be studied in conjunction with the prefatory essay in Volume 1, "The Moral Dimensions of the World's Food Supply," by Professor Samuel E. Stumpf, a leading philosopher.

The reception accorded these volumes by the scientific community is a source of satisfaction to the Editorial Committee and other consultants responsible for their planning. The quality of the volumes has been established by the excellence of reviews prepared by the many authorities who have generously and most pleasantly cooperated in their production.

As I complete my five-year term as Editor of the series, I express appreciation to all whose efforts have made these volumes possible, especially to my Associate Editors, Harry P. Broquist and Robert E. Olson. The continuity of scope and quality under the continuing editorship of Dr. Olson is certain. The addition of corresponding editors to our Editorial Committee will assure inclusion in subsequent volumes of appropriate authors from outside the United States and continuing treatment of international scientific developments.

Finally, the validity of the prediction by J. Murray Luck is now apparent. "Eventually," he wrote of the Annual Review of Nutrition, "it may be threatened with the obesity that has plagued its parent [the Annual Review of Biochemistry] but, of all people, those of you who are contributing to the science of nutrition will surely know how to maintain the pristine beauty and health of this new Annual Review".

Again, I thank my associates on the Editorial Committee, the consultants for the various volumes, the authors who have generously given of their time and accepted our editorial suggestions, as well as the staff and Board of Directors of Annual Reviews Inc. for affording me a most pleasant five years of rewarding editorial responsibilities. I look forward to continuing association with the Editorial Committee and wish Bob Olson an Editor's term as enjoyable as my own.

William J. Darby