The four lectures comprised in this monograph and in the succeeding one (Part IX, Reduction Cures and Gout) were delivered in a post-graduate course for Vienna physicians (May, 1908). By request of a number of local and foreign hearers, I am herewith publishing them in a somewhat extended form. I have omitted literature references throughout, as the latter may be found complete in my Handbook on the Pathology of Metabolism that has recently appeared (Berlin, 1906-1907). A few of the latest publications, however, that have been issued since then, are quoted. Whereas in my Handbook the facts that underlie our knowledge of the disorders of metabolism are exhaustively and critically explained, I have limited myself in these lectures essentially to a discussion of certain general conclusions that are based on theoretical and clinical experience and that are of value in actual practice. It was impossible, of course, to refrain altogether from occasional excursions into the theoretical side of the subject.

Two other lectures delivered in the post-graduate course of last year dealt with the Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus. I have omitted them from this series because everything essential contained in these lectures is incorporated in my book on "Diabetes Mellitus and its Treatment," 4th Edition, 1907, issued by the publishers of this Monograph.

Carl von Noorden.