exchange, documentation, and correlation of Information about biological responses to chemicals 

 than is evident at the present time. 



The Manual to the Use of the Biology Code: 

 The Key to the Biology Code 



The Origin and Description of the Key : 



It has already been noted, in describing the development of the Code, that a manual for its 

 use was discovered very quickly to be essential and that this was first prepared in 1952. The term, 

 "Key", applied to this manual may not have been entirely appropriate in view of the fact that a key to 

 a code is most commonly regarded as the definitions for its symbols while the code is thought of as 

 merely the symbols (i. e. , the code language). The term has persisted, however, and the Key to the 

 Biology Code will be understood to refer to the manual for explaining items of the Code, the Code 

 symbols, the procedure for their use, and retrieval of coded information. 



A new edition of the Key in 1953 Incorporated certain changes, but no major revision was made. 

 In preparing the Key for this published edition, every section has been re-written, attempting to clarify 

 the organization, purpose, and use of each field (i. e. , of each "subsidiary code" of the total Biology 

 Code). In this revision, every effort was made to use the many residual notes from coders outlining 

 problems encountered in coding certain information and suggesting additions. It is not inappropriate 

 to point out that many details concerning early decisions about coding procedures and arrangement and 

 use of code items and symbols had never been recorded in an organized fashion or at all, some of the 

 staff members making the provisions have since resigned, and memory of the complex of factors con- 

 sidered in making decisions has been imperfect. As a result, the task of preparing the Key has been 

 difficult and consumed time far beyond expectations. The incentive in making it as thorough as possible 

 has been the conviction of its value, from the standpoints of explaining each field, its future use with 

 the Biology Code per se, and of conveying to the prospective coder or agency considering coding biology 

 Information some better idea of the nature of the task which coding represents. 



For each field, the Key explains first any special organization of the items in the field and the 

 structure of the symbols for the items. This is followed by a section describing the purpose of the 

 field and its general relationship to the other fields of the Code in coding information about a given 

 chemical-biological test as a "code line". The final section is devoted to details of use of the symbols 

 for specific types of information and it attempts in most cases to explain the reasons for the particular 

 procedure rather than to present the coder or general reader with a stark set of rules and rule exceptions. 



The Complexity of the Key and the Complexity of Coding : 



Each of the CBCC resident staff members and, doubtless, each of the CBCC coders has the 

 memory of his first reaction to the Key, the manual describing coding of chemical-biological tests 

 using the Biology Code. An Introduction to the CBCC Biology Code and Key could hardly omit, there- 

 fore, a few words preparing the new coder, or anyone reviewing the Code, for the Key. 



The Key, as It is presented here, is an expansion of the 1953 edition. The expansion has been 

 made with the view of explaining. In turn, each coding field more thoroughly than did the earlier editions 

 of the Key. 



The detailed character of the Key has met with some criticism. Paradoxically, the criticism 

 is a wind that blows both ways. By persons who have had little experience in reducing chemical- 

 biological test Information to code, the suggestion has been made that the present Key for coding 

 biological data is far too detailed and that its Intelligibility is reduced by the sheer volume of minutiae. 

 However, when the Key has been criticized by coders, it is to the effect that coding provisions have 

 not always been adequately explained so that, when a special coding problem is encountered, the 

 coder has no recourse but to correspond with the Center, when he might otherwise have been able to 

 understand himself how to accomplish the solution. 



The initial impact of such a volume of details might understandably alarm the uninitiated, 

 making the Code seem more Intricate than it actually is. This is possibly because coding is so fre- 

 quently expected to be easy, mechanical, and requiring a minimum of cerebral exertion; to discover 

 It might be otherwise can be a rude awakening. It is of course ironical that the CBCC, which had as 



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