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DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY. 1971. By N. J. BERRILL 



McGraw-Hill, New York. 543 pp., 443 figs., combined author and subject indexes. SBN 



07 005020 1. $ 11.50 



Contents: Part I. The assembly of cell and organism, 1. Synthesis and assembly, 2. The 

 structural basis of form and action, 3. The cell cycle, 4. Cortical patterns and inheritance, 

 5. Multicellularity, 6. Polarity, form, and differentiation, 7. The development of multicellular 

 organisms, 8. Morphogenetic fields and the plant meristem; Part. II. The nature of animal 

 development, 9. Gametes and gametogenesis, 10. Fertilization, 11. Cleavage, polarity, deter- 

 mination, and gradients, 12. Cleavage and nuclear activity, 13. The egg cortex and develop- 

 ment, 14. Developmental mechanics or formative movements, 15. Embryonic induction; Part 

 III. Organization, reconstitution, and differentiation, 16. Cell assembly and interaction, 17. 

 The limb as a developing system, 18. Morphogenesis of the vertebrate eye, 19. Metamor- 

 phosis, hormones, and genes, 20. Genes, prepatterns, and determination, 21. Cytodifferentia- 

 tion, 22. Malignancy, differentiation, and development 



In the opinion of the present reviewer this book, despite its conventional title, is one of the 

 most thoughtful, inspiring, and original textbooks of developmental biology to have appeared 

 in recent years. It is intended primarily for advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate 

 students, and the student who has read and digested it will have attained as firm a grasp of 

 modern developmental biology as he could wish for. The field is defined very broadly and 

 includes subcellular and cellular aspects, genetic aspects, plant morphogenesis, asexual repro- 

 duction, regeneration, and metamorphosis. The examples are chosen from a variety of taxono- 

 mic groups much wider than is usually represented in students' textbooks. The dominant theme 

 is that of the self-assembly and directed assembly of organized substance. 



The main impression remaining after browsing through the book is that of an author who 

 is first and foremost a knowledgeable general biologist with a very sound insight and a 

 good feeling for the proper balance of fact and theory. As the table of contents will show the 

 book's organization is quite original. It begins with a discussion of molecular and subcellular 

 self-assembly which is highly unusual in books of this kind. The notions of polarity, gradient, 

 and morphogenetic field are introduced at an early stage and on a broad biological basis; it 

 is unexpected but refreshing to see the latter concept discussed initially in connection with 

 the plant meristem. The chapter on the egg cortex contains an undogmatic discussion of 

 "mosaic" and "regulative" egg types. In the chapters on the limb and the eye, embryonic 

 development and regeneration are treated as one continuous whole. In ch. 20 much attention 

 is devoted to the insect imaginal disc system. The last chapter, via a discussion of teratomas 

 and cell transformation, takes the reader back full circle to the beginning of the book. These 

 are only a few highlights of this remarkable book. 



Each chapter is concluded by a series of "concepts" or condensed conclusions stated in 

 general terms, and by a well-chosen list of readings. The illustrations are numerous and very 

 good indeed. They supplement rather than support the text; to this end they are provided with 

 lengthy captions. This aspect of the book is the only one that is not wholly satisfactory: often 

 the captions are still too brief to be completely intelligible without support from the text. 



The book is produced with great care and the layout, helped by the square page format, 

 is esthetically very pleasing. The index is very detailed, but it is a pity that the authors 

 mentioned in the figure captions are not included. 



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ELEMENTS D'EMBRYOLOGIE. I. Embryologie generate comparee et humaine. 1970. By 



A. DOLLANDER and R. FENART 



Editions Medicales Flammarion, Paris. 366 pp., 182 figs., 5 tabs., subject index. Fr. 52 (paper) 



This is the first volume of a two-volume textbook of embryology for medical students. 

 Vol. I is by Dollander, while vol. II will be by Fenart and will be devoted to special human 

 embryology. In the present volume one chapter (that on the hereditary material) was written 

 entirely by A. Duprez, while another one (that on general concepts relating to congenital 

 anomalies) was largely edited by this author. The book has a laudatory preface by Prof. A. M. 

 Dalcq. 



The book is remarkable in several respects. It is in two parts, "General comparative em- 

 bryology" and "General human embryology". The most striking feature of part one is perhaps 



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