receive full attention in the five main chapters of the book. A very brief general 

 chapter on embryonic membranes in higher vertebrates is intercalated between 

 the chapters dealing with the chick and the mouse. The final chapter briefly 

 discusses such general subjects as cell division, the germ layer concept, 

 organizers and inductors, continuity of germ-plasm, the biogenetic law, and 

 teratogenesis. 



The chapters on the frog, the chick, the mouse, and man are concluded by 

 very brief sections on experimental embryology, giving the bare minimum of 

 information. In the chapter on man, this information centres around cytogenet- 

 ics. Otherwise the approach is entirely descriptive. An important feature of 

 the book are its numerous excellent illustrations, often grouped into series 

 providing a dynamic picture of normal development. Most of the drawings are 

 taken from other books, but a large proportion of the photographs, both of 

 whole embryos and of serial and single sections at low and high magnifications, 

 are original. Among many other notable illustrations there is an extended 

 "millimeter-by-millimeter" series of photographs of human embryos. 



A special word may be said about the chapter on the mouse. So far the 

 mouse has seldom, if ever, been treated so extensively in a textbook of 

 embryology. This chapter, and particularly its second half, is so organized 

 that it might be used as a concise Normal Table for experimental work. This 

 is particularly important since no detailed Normal Table of mouse development 

 is available. 



There are no literature references in the text. The three-page bibliography 

 contains only books and a few large publications. The book is concluded by 

 an extensive glossary of embryological terms, and a good subject index. Lay- 

 out and printing of the book are excellent. 



The glossary contains many terms from the domain of experimental embryology. Why they 

 appear in the present book is not entirely clear. Moreover, in the reviewer's opinion, several 

 of the definitions given for these terms in particular are not very satisfactory, and some are 

 definitely wrong. 



Another minor point of critdcism concerns figs. 3.6 and 3.7, which have apparently been 

 interchanged. 



15. EMBRYOLOGIE 



Ein Lehrbuch auf allgemein biologischer Grundlage 



2nd, revised edition 



1965 



by D. Starck Georg Thieme Verlag 



709 pp.. 559 figs., 3 tabular appendixes Stuttgart 



Price: DM 88.— 



The first edition of this monumental treatise appeared in 1955. The present 

 edition has been thoroughly revised. The outstanding feature of the book is 

 that it attempts to present vertebrate comparative embryology and develop- 

 mental physiology as a unity, with most of the stress on the latter. 



The sections on developmental physiology and embryogenesis were entirely 

 rewritten. New material was included from the domains of electron microscopy, 

 histochemistry, and chromosomal analysis. 



Notwithstanding the increase in content the total size of the book has hardly 

 increased, as a result of a more economical lay-out. The number of illustrations 

 was increased by more than 10 %. Many recent titles were incorporated in the 

 340 



