oxidative breakdown and energy production, and to the biochemical basis 

 of differentiation. 



The book is not illustrated and contains no graphs. The bibliography con- 

 tains more that 1,500 publications, without titles; a small but significant 

 proportion of these are by Rumanian and other Eastern-European authors. 



35 EMBRYONIC BIOLOGY OF BIRD DEVELOPMENT 



1968 



By V. V. Rolnik Publishing House "Nauka" 



424 pp., 58 figs.. 52 tbs. Leningrad 



This book is written in Russian and is announced only briefly. It is in 

 three parts, the first of which deals with the egg and embryonic development 

 prior to incubation, the second with the morphology and physiology of 

 embryonic development during incubation, and the third with the role of 

 exogeneous factors (temperature, humidity, ventilation, etc.) in embryonic 

 development. There is a very extensive bibliography (40 pp. continuously 

 printed), which contains about 50 % Russian titles; much of the literature 

 cited is recent to very recent. 



36 CELLULAR BIOLOGY OF VERTEBRATE 



REGENERATION AND REPAIR 

 1968 

 By A. J. Schmidt University of Chicago Press 



420 pp., 117 figs., 10 tbs. Chicago - London 



Price: 112 s. 



The author of this book has been actively engaged for more than ten 

 years in the study of amphibian limb regeneration. The main theme of the 

 book centers on the cytoarchitecture and molecular ecology of (adult) 

 amphibian appendage regeneration. The data from this field are compared 

 with tissue responses to injury and subsequent repair in other vertebrates, 

 with special emphasis on wound healing. 



Since much of the discussion centres around the limb regeneration blastema, 

 it is important to note that the author holds the view that the blastema does 

 not consist of pluripotential, "embryonic" cells, but that regenerating tissues 

 retain their previously determined genetic information for development. In 

 his opinion redifferentiaticn is no more than modulation as defined by 

 Weiss (1939). Only the skeleton and related connective tissues would be 

 derived from true blastema cells, whereas all other tissues would have their 

 origins in the homologous tissues of the stump. 



Most of the book is about activities and interactions at the cellular level, 

 both in the epithelium and mesenchyme. The problem of pattern formation 

 and polarity determination in the regenerating limb is merely grazed here 

 and there, and most of the admittedly scanty information that is available 

 on this problem is omitted from the discussions and literature references. On 

 the other hand, the book contains a wealth of information on the cellular 

 biology of the process, and as such is the first really comprehensive survey 

 of this aspect of vertebrate regeneration ever written by a single author. 



The book is in three main parts, the first of which is mainly descriptive 

 and, apart from an introduction and a brief chapter on cutaneous wound 

 healing, deals entirely with the regenerating (adult) amphibian appendage. 

 Part two deals with metabolites and metabolism in repair and regeneration, 

 and has chapters on carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids, proteins, and en- 



327 



