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NEW BOOKS
?JEW BOORS War Gases: Their Identzfication and Decontamination. B ~ J I O R R13. I SJACOBS. xiii
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180 pp. Kew York: Interscience Publishers, Inc., 1942. This book is a compilation covering the following topics : classification of chemical warfare agents, their physical characteristics and physiological response, effect on food, water, and other materials, sampling, analysis, and methods of decontamination. aApproxiniately one-half of the treatment is devoted to the detection, identification, and determination of the Tvar gases. This section includes organoleptic analysis, field and laboratory cheniical tests, determination by various methods, and confirniatory tests. According t o the preface, the book is ~ r i t t e nprimarily for the gas identification officer, the war gas chemist, and decontamination and health officers. Some of the chapters should be of value to the air raid warden. This book gives a large amount of information in a relatively small space and should prove useful to those concerned with the identification of war gases and their decontamination.
E. B. SASDELL. Encyclopedia of Substitutes and Synthetics. Edited by MORRISD. SCHOESGOLD. 382 pp. New York: Philosophical Library, Inc., 1943. Price: $10.00. This book contains an alphabetical list of many technical products, in which properties and uses are given, together with substitute materials, v-here such are known Acknonledgement is made to some seventy-five firms and four Government Agencies n h o have furnished information. As might be expected, the entries are drawn rather heavily froin the fields of plastics and solvents. There is a n index of trade names with information as to manufacturers, and a brief subject index which is chiefly a “uses” indes. I n spite of the title and the price, however, this book is no encyclopedia. The revieIver asked some of his colleagues t o suggest names of coinnion commercial products m-hich could be classed as synthetics; from a list of thirty-one such names, onlyeleven were found in this book. The list of entries is niuch smaller than one has a right toespect, the paper is not of the best quality, the work shons evidences of hastynriting, and the book is grosslyoverpriced. LEE IRVISSMITH.
