accustomed to thinking in tenns of coding procedures, indexing, and mechanical storage of information, they 

 are made because it is certain that they are not always immediately or clearly appreciated by new coders. 



In gaining initial understanding of the Biology Code, it might be helpful to approach it, perhaps 

 unconventionally, by regarding it as a specially devised language. Indeed, any language is a code for 

 transmission of thought, words being symbols used in an organized fashion. The Biology Code is com- 

 posed of special symbols which provide at least three advantages, (1) condensation of ideas and ordinary 

 words, (2) facility, resulting from condensation, to be handled by mechanical methods, and (3) a common 

 medium of expression in a multilingual scientific society. 



The first of these may be appreciated by having examined the IBM punched card (illustrated and 

 described in the Appendix) and items of the Biology Code. Any word, such as "emulsion" (a physical 

 state of the test compound. Field A of the Code) could be recorded literally by perforations of the IBM 

 card, using eight IBM punched card columns for the eight letters of the word. The purpose of the 

 Biology Code is to reduce this idea to occupy the least possible space and it does so by substituting 

 one symbol (the number 5 in Column 9 on the IBM punched card) for the other symbol (i. e. , for the 

 word "emulsion"). Regardless of whether information is to be placed on punched cards or merely 

 written, the brevity represents an advantage in recording. 



The abbreviation usually accomplished by devising code symbols, described above as the first 

 of the advantages, provides mechanical advantage . Mechanical selection of a given word or idea is far 

 more simple and rapid when only one mechanical motion or electric contact (or the minimum possible 

 number of mechanical motions or electric contacts) needs to be made to accomplish the selection. 



The third advantage presumes that the Biology Code and the manual for its use (i. e. , the Key) 

 can be translated into any contemporary language. The Biology Code symbols for the ideas conveyed 

 remain the same and, to the extent that coding itself is successful in expressing information about a 

 test, coded biological information on IBM punched cards (or on any other medium, such as electronic 

 tape) can be universally exchanged. 



The Biology Code, then, is first a collection of terms and ideas which represent pieces of 

 information that are typical of experimental application of chemicals to biological systems; these 

 terms and ideas of the Code are expressed in a specially devised language of symbols, each of which 

 is defined by its equivalent in the language by which tests are described. Therefore, the Biology Code 

 might be regarded as a foreign language dictionary in which the words of one language are defined in 

 terms of words of the other. 



The original list of terms and ideas ("items") of the Biology Code were those which were 

 recommended by the biologists of the several CBCC subcommittees and biologists of the CBCC staff 

 to meet the objectives of the Center. Since the second edition (refer to the description of the histor- 

 ical development of the Code), many additional items have been added by the staff of the Center, to 

 accommodate coding of all types of biological information. 



The Code's organization into fields and the influence exerted by the particular mechanical 

 equipment used on the number and character of the fields are discussed in the following paragraphs. 



Fields of the Code Considered as Independent Codes and Indexes : 



The information about chemical-biological tests will be seen to lend itself to being organized 

 into categories or types, such as the identity of the organism used, the anatomical part affected, the 

 dosage used, etc. 



As explained in the next paragraph, organization of the Code is such that each of these cate- 

 gories of information about chemical-biological tests Is treated independently. By virtue of this, any 

 symbol used for an item of one category can be used for another item in another category. Just as, in 

 any language, one word symbol may have different meanings according to how it is applied (e.g. , "left", 

 "train", "press", "bream", "crab"). Symbol A, therefore, can be used as a symbol for one state of 

 test compounds (adsorbed gas) and can be used also as a symbol for one phylum of test organisms 

 (Chordata), as a symbol for an anatomical organ system (skin), etc. , according to the position in 

 which it is placed on the mechanical system. 



To be able to treat these categories independently, it is necessary to establish each category's 

 identity in the mechanical system used. Using standard business machines as its basic mechanical 



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