On locally nilpotent groups

1. If P is any property of groups, then we say that a group G is ‘locally P’ if every finitely generated subgroup of G satisfies P. In this paper we shall be chiefly concerned with the case when P is the property of being nilpotent, and will examine some properties of nilpotent groups which also hold for locally nilpotent groups. Examples of locally nilpotent groups are the locally finite p-groups (groups such that every finite subset is contained in a finite group of order a power of the prime p); indeed, every periodic locally nilpotent group is the direct product of locally finite p-groups.