Abstract
It is concluded that Buchanan''s formula can not be employed to calculate the unit rate of heat production in the experiments performed by Bayne-Jones and Rhees. Support for this conclusion rests chiefly on the demonstration that heat has not been liberated in accordance with the assumptions to which this formula may be traced. Incidentally, it has become evident that the unit rate of heat production is actually a diminishing exponential function of time whenever heat output during the logarithmic phase of growth is linear, 2 conditions that have been quite satisfactorily reproduced in the experiments referred to. This quantity neither remains constant, as Buchanan''s formula demands, nor does it vary in the manner shown to be characteristic of the curve describing unit heat production. What bearing these facts may have on ultimate concepts in regard to the processes concerned with bacterial metabolism, must be left to further experimental investigation.

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