circulation within moving drops. In addition, the subject index has been expanded twofold which will greatly increase the value of this book on any reference shelf, and mitigate one of the principal criticisma of the preaent r e viewer. (See J. Am. Chem. Soc. 84, 2024 [1962].) &ROL J. MYSELS University of Southen Califmnia Los Angeles
trmd Co., Inc., Princeton, New Jersey, 1963. viii 497 pp. Figs. and tables. 16 X 23.5 cm. $12.50. This volume will probably take its place as the successor to Woodman's "Food Analysis," formerly widely used as a textbook but now out of date (last edition, 1941). The analytical sections are patterned rather closely in subject matter and arrangement over the earlier text. As the title indicates, considerably more space is devoted to the composition Soviet Men of Science of foods and the elementary chemist,ry of the chief food constituenta. There John Tu~kevieh,Princeton University, are also discussions of processing, and D. Van Nostrand Co.. Inc.. Princeton. important commercial products of each New Jersey, 1963. 441 pp. 14.5 x food group. Nutritive values are men22.5 cm. $12. tioned, but the coverage is so superficial The book contains biographies with that these sections might better have some bibliography of Academicians and been omitted. Corresponding Members of the Academy The book begins with a brief chapter of Sciences of the USSR. The purpose devoted to the historical development of of the hook is to bring a better underfood laws. Chapter 2 is concerned with standing to Western scientists of outsampling techniques and proximate atanding achiwements of Soviet science analysis. Chapter 3 gives a brief, but useand to facilitate the direct contact of ful discussion of the basic principles of men of science of the West with their physical methods and instruments used counterparts in theEast. widely in food analysis. Perhaps the The enormously expanded scientific most disappointing feature of the book work has become really international. is the feet that although the instruments For this reason it happens that often the and their operation are well described in same scientific question is studied simulthis chapter, and the fly leaf rightly taneously in several countries, and somestatetes that these instrumental methods times from the different viewpoints and have to a large extent supplanted older by different methods. Under these congravimetric and volumetrir assays, the ditions the direct contact helps t o save assays given in detail in later chapters the time by avoiding repetition of the are for the most part those selected by same work, and obtain better results by Woodman more than twenty years ago. the mutual exchange of ideas. Thua the Absorption spectroscopy, certainly one usefulness of a book which aims to help to of the most generally used tools in modem establish these contacts cannot be food analysis, is practically ignored overemphasized. in the selected assays of subsequent To make his task possible, the author chapters, as are the many excellent had to limit the number of persons methods based on paper, thin layer, included, and he chose men connected column or gas liquid chromatography, with the Academy of Sciences of the polarography, etc. There is no reason that USSR. That, unfortunately, excludes undergraduate students cannot be inmany important specialists, e.g., organic troduced to at least some of these methods. chemist A. A. Petrov in Leningrad, who Chapters 4 through 8 deal with main published about 100 papers in the years food groups, i.e., fat and fat products, 1957-61 or A. K. Babko, analytical sugar and sugar products, cereals, milk chemist working in Kiev who published and milk products, meat and meat in the same period 50 papers. products, while the last two chapters are It was, of course, impossible for the concerned with food colom and flavors author to cheek Soviet sources which (mainly spices). In the analytical secare prone to credit Soviet men for aehievetions of each of these chapters, some ments belonging to others. As a result, assays are given in sufficient detail to the development of polyvinylpynolidone be uaed as a laboratory guide and othem (essential ingredient of blood plasma are described briefly in principle only, substitute Periston) is attributed to M. with reference to the original literature. F. Shostakovskii, despite it having been Directions for the detailed analyses are developed and used in Germany during usually less complete than those given in World War 11. Woodman so that the procedure might Some minor errors can be mentioned, not always be intelligible to undergradue.g., in the biography of B. A. Arbuzov ates with no other preparation than a (p. 24) it is mentioned that he prepared short course in quantitative analysis. a number of diene products by the method Chapter 9, on contmninatiou, deterioraof dime synthesis. tion and preservation of foods, covers In spite of these shortcomings, the so wide a territory that the treatment is book is valuable and very useful. necessarily very superficial. The only A. SEMENTSOV detailed assays included in this chapter are mold counts snd tests for older Lafayette College chemical preservatives. I t might be E m l a , Pennsylvania better in training today's food scientist, to omit the teats for formaldehyde, salFood Composition and Analysis icylates, borates, etc., long since disallowed in foods, and introduce instead Hauard 0.Triebold, Pennsylvania State methods for the analysis of antibiotics or University, University Psrk, and Leospray residues. & W. Aurand, North Carolina Errors are infrequent and those d e State College, Raleigh. D. Van Nos-
A534 / Journol of Chemicol Educofion
+
tected could mainly be ascribed to lack of critical evaluation of more recent literature. For example, 8-hydroxy scrolein rather than epihydrin aldehyde is considered to be the resetant in both the Kreis and the Thiobmbituric Acid Tests, and completely conjugated hydroperoxides are now believed to be formed as the primsry lipid oxidation products during autoxidation aa well as during Lipoxidase catalyzed oxidation. I t would indeed be difficult for authors to keep up to the recent literature in as broad a field as the coverage of this book. Less easily forgivable are occasional failures to state basic principles clearly and correctly, as for example, relating color in unsaturated compounds to a "deficiency of electrons." Greater consistency in the conventions chosen for portraying radicals, bonds between atoms, aromatic ring structures, etc., would be desirable. On the whole, this volume could be useful as a text for s. one or two semester course on food composition and analysis. Supplementary laboratory work on newer analytical methods would be highly desirable in any case and essential for a longer course. The book will also undoubtedly be much used by practicing food ohemists as a first place to look for a discussion of time honored, classical methods svsilsble for the main food constituents. BEM. WATTS Flwida State Uniuersity Tallahassee Pharmaceutical Calculations
Willis T. Bvadlay, Carrol B. Gwlafson, and Mitchell J. Stoklosa, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, Boston. 4th ed. Lee. and Febiger, Philadelphia, 1963. 357 pp. Figs. and tables. 16 X 24.5 cm. $5. The fourth edition of "Pharmaceutical Calculations" lives up to the high standards clearly established in earlier editions. The rearrangements of subject matter and the additions of sections on The H. L. B. System iuclud'mg the HLB values of certain surfactants in tabular form tonether with s. short discussion of Basic St~tisric>.lC
