Professor Burmeister, in dealing with problems of relative growth, uses equations of the form Y = a Xh, as proposed by Huxley. Values for the exponent b, in equations of this form, indicate the rate of accretion of the part (organ, chemical constituent, body compartment, metabolic function) in relation to the whole. Values for b of less than one indicate a relatively lesser rate of accretion of the part
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e.g., our exponent for extracellular fluid, b = 0.80 (Table II of Burmeister's reference 5); values of greater than one indicate a relatively greater rate of accretion of the part–e.g., Burmeister's exponents for total body potassium, 1.09, and for cell mass, 1.11, and ours for resting oxygen consumption, 1.22, and for fat, 2.18 (Table II of Burmeister's reference 5).
Total body potassium revisited
