Introduction

To whom the first thoughts on simultaneous statistical inference or multiple comparisons should be attributed is an obscure historical point which is not of prime importance to this monograph. Likely as not, it was a nonstatistician. What one can be certain of is that simultaneous inference did not burst into existence one fine morning in full, completed form, but rather evolved slowly from the treatment of special cases until the general applicability and merit of the underlying principles were recognized and molded into a general theory and philosophy.