BOOK REVIEWS his career. I have therefore commenced my subject with the generation of X-rays and followed i t with the first industrial application of the radiation, namely, the radiographic examination of metals . . . The object of this haokis to give the metallurgist a n appreciation of X-ray methods as they apply to his particular field of work and to present the X-ray crystallographer, untrained in the metallurgical arts and wishing to apply his skills to the many fascinatingproblems which await him there, withasuitahleintroductorytext.. . . It is hoped that the tables will make it a practical as well as a theoretical textbook and that the bibliographies will serve as guides t o the literature for all those who wish t o advance their studies further!'
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tween structures and properties of msterials, and the methods used toreveal the structures. This book is an excellent choice for their reference bookshelf, being mueh more factual and authoritative than the chemistry textbooks to which they ordinarily have access. There are a wealth af topics that will be of interest t o them and they are competently presented in clear, easily-understood English. This is a book that can be highly recommended t o them.
LAURENCE S. FOSTER Ordnance Materials Reseaxh Ofice
Scientific Rurrion Guide: Handbook for Students ond Profesrionalr Interested in Scientific Rursion
Mary A . Emery, Hofstra College, Hempstead, New York, and Serge A. fimery. MeGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 191 pp. 16 New York, 1961. vii X 23.5 em. $4.50.
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Presupposing a n elementary acquaintance with Russian grammar, this guide takes readers through a self-help course of 40 graded lessons, in four parts and drawing on about twenty areas of science. The jsrket statement that completion of the course will make the student a wellqualified translator in his own subject is unjustifiable; so brief a course could not turn out competent translators in twenty different disciplines. On more realistic ground, the plan of presentation is excellent, the topics are well chosen both for interest and for ca~ a r i t vto instruct. and the ersdation from
duction to Russian science and eontemporary Soviet scientific publications" is well substantiated by the selections and the accompanying aids. Buvers of the book will a ~ ~ l a uthe d type is clear, with enough but not too mueh white space, so that legibility is excellent. (Continued n page A236)
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Journal o f Chemical Education
BOOK REVIEWS Most of the minor defects may be laid a t the publisher's door. Misprints are sometimes carried from text to vocabulary, e.g., alxyl for alkyl. More serious, as det,raeting from inst,ruetional quality, is the apparent lark of rornpctent technical editing in all the fields of science. It appears that only one author ha8 technical t,raining; no one could expect him to be expert in the terminology of sciences by thc score. To draw an only two (rhcmistry and biology), weaknesses in terminology include trnnsmutation for conversion, glycerine ior glyrerol, temporary for temporal, nervous for neural or nerve (adj.), and athen. A little skill and care, contributed by appropriate memhem af the publisher's editorial staff, could have caught these weaknesses. The authors, in their laudable and pcdrtgogirally sound effort to stick close to tho true native meaning of words, have somctimes been a bit too literal, e.g., on p. vi, picture for illustrated, and on p. 00. Arithometer (a misprint not carried over) for calculator. A typographical inconsistency is the partial, not nniform, European use of commas for decimal points and vice versa, chiefly for units (pp. 144 if.). Students who can rise above these little matt,ers can benefit much from studying this book. Those who rannot should not undertake to study any foreign languagc.
JULIANF. SMITH Lenoir Rhwc College Hickoqi, N w l h Cwolim
Chemistry of Drug Metabolism
William H. Fishman, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts. Charles C Thomas, Sprin@eld, Illinois, 1961. xvii 235 pp. Figs. and tables. 16 X 23.5cm. $10.50.
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One of the most obscure features of modern therapeutics is the metabolic fate of the drug administered. I n this treatise, the author has brought together many of the data extant in this field. The book is therefore timely and fills a need recognized hy the various workers in the field of drug therapy. Section I deals with the metabolic transformation of organic chemicals, including hydrocarbons, arnines, phenols, alcohols, and many other structures. Some of these are industrial chemicals and poisons. The extensive use of chemical formulas gives a t a glance the fate of many of these agents in bhe body. The second embraces the metabolic transformation of drugs. Under this heading, the principal antibiotics, sulfonamides, sdilieylstes, and hormones are discussed with regard to their metabolic fates. The remaining sections of the book discuss the biochemical features of drug metabolism a t a n enzyme level such as hydraxylation, conjugation with glueuronic acid, hydrolytic cleavage and transferase activity. Section VII is especially informative and (Conlinued on page A2.78)
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