General embryological information service - HPS Repository

logy of the placenta; foetal respiration and circulation; changes in the maternal
organism; parturition; lactation; fertility; sex-determining factors; the life cycle.
Vol. Ill: endocrinology of mammalian reproduction.
"THE ORGANIZATION OF CELLS AND OTHER ORGANISMS"
1960
by L. Picken Clarendon Press
661 pp., 113 text-figs., 34 pis. Oxford
Price: 84 s.
As stated by the author, this book is a work of compilation. In the reviewer's
opinion, however, it is much more than mere compilation. One of its most
important features is no doubt that the author has tried, wherever possible, to
illustrate the change and development of the concepts of cellular and macromolecular
biology against an historical background. The author provides ample
justification for this trend of the book in his Introduction. The advantage of
this kind of approach becomes evident in particular in the first chapter, which
bears the same title as the book, and provides a modern and dynamic theoretical
framework for the factual material to be presented in the following chapters.
The most immediately evident quality of the book is that it brings together
in one volume an amazing quantity of factual material, which up till now
was only to be found widely scattered througout the literature of several
different disciplines. This has, moreover, been done in such a way as to
provide a well integrated body of knowledge, instead of a mere enumeration.
Chapters II to IX deal successively with viruses, certain Schizomycetes
(mainly bacteria), the nucleus, the cytoplasm, cytoplasmic particulates and
membrane-systems, fibrillar cytoplasmic structure, the cell surface and cell
membranes, and finally with extracellular materials and structures. Chapter X
(64 pages) is of special interest to embryologists: it is entitled "Becoming
multicellular as seen in the light of cell properties", and discusses such subjects
as changes in adhesive properties during the life cycle, the surface coat of the
amphibian egg, cleavage, gastrulation, the role of mucoproteins, cell affinity,
etc.
The bibliography covers 77 pages. References to papers written in English
predominate. The author states that he has not aimed at completeness of the
bibliography. It is sufficient, however, to enable the reader to find his way into
the relevant literature. The bibliography serves at the same time as an author
index.
The work is carefully illustrated with line drawings and photographic plates.
The majority of the text-figures were re-drawn. The book is concluded by an
extensive subject index.
"OOGENESIS;
The storage of developmental information"
1961
by Chr. P. Raven Pergamon Press Ltd.
(Vol. 10 of the International Series Oxford, London, New York, Paris
of Monographs on Pure and Applied Price: 50 s.
Biology, Div.: Zoology)
262 pp., 44 figs., 4 pis.
This book represents a new approach to the problems of development and
heredity.
282