16 



10. REGENERATION 



1966 



by E. D. Hay Holt, Rinehart & Winston 

 "Biology Studies" Series New York etc. 



158 pp., 52 figs. Price: 38s. 



This booklet forms part of a series which is intented for mature students, 

 but which may also be of value to research workers for rapid orientation in 

 a given field. The treatment is by no means exhaustive, but it is up-to-date 

 and points out important research problems for the future. 



The present book is organized in four chapters, of which the first three 

 discuss regenerative phenomena in the successive animal phyla and classes 

 in "phylogenetic" order. "Phylogenetic" charts are provided for acoelomate 

 and coelomate invertebrates, and for the vertebrates. The last chapter deals 

 with the cytology of regeneration cells, which is the author's own specific field 

 of research. 



In chapter 1 (invertebrates, 40 pages) one section deals with asexual re- 

 production and its relation to regeneration, while 8 short sections present an 

 outline of regeneration and its causal analysis in the major invertebrate phyla. 

 In chapter 2 (lower vertebrates, 38 pages) the main emphasis is on the 

 causal analysis, physiology, and cytology of regeneration of the amphibian 

 eye lens and limb. Chapter 3 (mammals, 17 pages) discusses physiological 

 regeneration, reparative regeneration, and the healing of skin wounds. In the 

 first of these sections some attention is devoted to the biochemistry of the 

 mitotic cycle. Chapter 4 starts with sections on cell fine structure and function 

 as applied to "neoblasts" and blastema cells, and proceeds with a re-evaluation 

 of the "reserve cell" problem, and of the concepts of differentiation, dediffer- 

 entiation, and "totipotency". This part of the book is the most original and 

 thought-provoking. 



The book is illustrated with many good figures, most of them with extensive 

 legends which serve to expand points mentioned only briefly in the text. 

 Several of the figures are electron-micrographs or autoradiography. The biblio- 

 graphy covers 15 pages. The book is concluded by author and subject indexes. 



11. VORLESUNGEN UBER ENTWICKLUNGSPHYSIOLOGIE 



2nd ed., 1965 



by A. Kuhn Springer Verlag 



599 pp.. 620 figs. Berlin - Heidelberg - New York 



Price: DM 58.— 



The first edition of this unusual book appeared in 1954. It is a collection of 

 lectures held during a long life of teaching, and bears the strong personal mark 

 of the author, who was trained in the classical German tradition of "Ent- 

 wicklungsmechanik". The value of the book lies in its extraordinarily broad 

 scope, its "organismic" approach to the subject, and its unifying theoretical 

 framework. The book should not be regarded as a textbook, but as a selection 

 of examples from a wide range of organisms, chosen to illustrate important 

 causal principles of development. It is especially important that so much of the 

 material discussed relates to plants and a variety of unicellular organisms. 



As might be expected in a book of this kind, a number of lacunae could be 

 pointed out. However, the book contains much information and thought that 



