The Surface-Area/Body-Weight Relationship in Mice

Since Sarrus and Remeaux (see Kleiber 1961, p. 180) first proposed a "surface law", the measured or calculated surface area of animals has been used by many workers as a basis for comparison between individuals and between species in studies of metabolic rate. The history of the surface law has been discussed by Kayser (1951) and by Kleiber (1961). The DuBois standards for determining the surface area of humans have served for many years as a valuable basis for comparison between individuals in physiological and clinical studies of metabolic rate. However, standards similar to the DuBois standards for humans do not exist for other species. The trend in recent work on metabolic rate of animals appears to be to make comparisons on a body-weight basis rather than on a surface-area basis. The work reported in this paper was designed to investigate the usefulness of surface area as a basis for comparison in some studies on metabolic rate of mice.