To Prepare Starch Methods in Carbohydrate Chemistry. Vol. 4. Starch. R. L. WHISTLER, R. J. SMITH, J. N. BEMILLER, M. L. WOLFROM,
editors.
xvi
+
335
pages. Academic Press, 111 Fifth Ave., New York, N.Y. 10003. 1964. $13.50. Reviewed by Dr. Elizabeth M. Osman. Dr. Osman is professor of home economics at the State University of Iowa. This volume presents descriptions of a wide variety of methods used for the preparation, characterization, and modification or derivatization of starch. They range from such crude application tests as the subjective evaluation of adhesives for tack and substrate fiber failure under controlled conditions to such more sophisticated techniques as molecular weight determination by light-scattering. Discussions of some of these latter methods hardly meet the claim on the dust jacket that "Each method is fully described so that it may be readily repeated," nor could they be expected to in a volume of this scope. They do perform a valuable function in describing clearly and concisely the theory and general procedure and its application to the study of starch and its derivatives, together with references to more detailed information for the reader seriously contemplating use of the method in question. With some 76 widely different methods described by 61 authors and coauthors, a considerable variation in presentation is to be expected. With few exceptions the writing is lucid and the procedures, in general, are given in such careful detail that even a relatively inexperienced laboratory worker should be able to use them successfully. Suitable equipment and instruments are usually suggested. Brief descriptions and the suppliers of many of the products and instruments mentioned are given in a glossary, although reasons for choosing the particular ones included are not always clear. For example, information about certain well known laboratory instruments would seem to be less needed than that about a "handmill with a nut-butter cutter" suitable for use in the procedure given for preparation of wheat starch, but the former and not the latter is included.
Numerous references are understandably made to methods in other volumes of this series. However, reference to another volume for a 16word footnote describing the preparation of anhydrous methanol is annoying, although less so than a reference with a typographical error (34 for 43) to a description of about the same length of the preparation of dry pyridine. Choice of methods presented is sometimes puzzling, e.g., starch fractionation by leaching the amylose from an alkaline dispersion of starch, with no description of the widely used method employing polar solvents, and likewise, measurement of soluble starch as the one method for measuring starch rétrogradation. Because of the wide variety of problems which call for examination of starch, no volume could include all methods of interest to all investigators. This volume brings together most of those commonly used, usually with detailed procedures given by workers experienced in their use, and thereby provides a real service to the starch chemist and the many workers in related fields who have need for such procedures.
Survey of Behavioral Effects in Biochemistry Biochemistry and UEL
EIDUSON,
Behaviour. EDWARD
ARTHUR
YUWILER,
EIDUSON.
xii + 554 pages.
SAM-
GELLER,
BERNICE
T.
D. Van
Nostrand Co., Inc., 120 Alexander St., Princeton, N.J. 1964. $15. Reviewed by Dr. Sidney Udenfriend. Dr. Udenfriend is chief, laboratory of clinical biochemistry, National Heart Institute. The important contributions made by biochemistry to general metabolism, pathology, and genetics have left behavioral scientists envious and impatient to make comparable biochemical breakthroughs. As a result there have been hundreds of papers published within recent years attempting to relate biochemistry with some aspects of behavior. This book is an attempt to organize all this material. The approach is summarized in the following statement in the introduction
to the book "Our intention has been to look at the hundreds of studies that have been primarily biochemical but have cited some behavioral findings. Conversely, we have been interested in the hundreds of studies in the behavioral sciences, particularly psychology, that have directly or indirectly implicated some biochemical parameter. Our aim is to systematize these studies in a meaningful way." The authors have certainly succeeded in accumulating a large and useful bibliography and have presented a survey of the developments in different areas. Unfortunately this area of research is in a primitive and confused state which the book shows up only too clearly. The encyclopedic approach to biochemistry and behavior has several other unfortunate results. First, the authors have dug up some of the "spectacular" findings in the field which I had thought were laid to rest. These include glutamic acid and I.Q., adrenochrome and psychosis, and tarexein and schizophrenia, to name a few. True, the authors caution the reader that these findings are controversial or have not been corroborated. However, I would have liked to have seen more definite views expressed. In writing about the alchemy, which is practiced by some "behavioral scientists," I would have expected a few stronger words of criticism. Not having done this, I am afraid that this book might perpetuate some of the mythology of biochemistry and behavior. Secondly, since the authors have attempted to be encyclopedic, they have not discussed in depth the few interesting and verified findings. An example of this is the discussion of phenylketonuria. Although there are many references to this disorder in the book, the established facts are not given in detail and are intermingled with unsubstantiated and irrelevant claims. Failure to discuss subjects in depth can be misleading. Thus on page 427 reference is made to the fact that hétérozygote carriers of phenylketonuria cannot clear a phenylalanine load from the blood as effectively as normals. Statistically this appears to be true. However, a critical review of this work would have gone on to state that handling of a phenylalanine load does not distinguish individual hétérozygotes from individual normals and cannot be used to screen prospective parents. A serious omission from this book is FEB. 1, 1 9 6 5 C & E N
59
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