view is strongly epigenetic in character and accords only limited importance 

 to the genetic information present in the chromosomes. This reviewer, not 

 being an expert on human developmental anatomy, can only repeat what he said 

 on previous occasions: let every reader judge the value of these views for 

 himself. 



The book is produced with great care and is illustrated with micrographs, 

 drawings and diagrams of outstanding quality. It is quite typical that the 

 only literature cited consists of three books by the first and one by the 

 second author (as well as some of Blechschmidt ' s publications in German cited 

 in footnotes) . 



28. 



Y.NOTAKE and S.SUZUKI, eds. 1977. BIOLOGICAL AND CLINICAL ASPECTS OF THE 



FETUS 



Thieme, Stuttgart; Igaku Shoin, Tokyo. VIII, 263 pp., 207 figs., 50 tabs., 



author and subject indexes. DM 148.00 



This book will be mainly of significance to members of the medical pro- 

 fession, but some chapters will be of interest to mammalian and human em- 

 bryologists. All but one of the 17 contributors are Japanese researchers 

 working either in Japan or elsewhere; they are all engaged in both basic and 

 clinical research. The eight chapters are reviews intermingled with some- 

 times considerable amounts of original material, some of which was not pub- 

 lished previously. 



Two chapters are of particular interest to our readers. One is on the 

 biology of mammalian embryos in pre-implantation stages (S.Suzuki et ai^., 

 16 pp.). The other is an extensive survey (Tanimura, 57 pp.) of findings on 

 both normal and abnormal embryonic and early fetal human development based 

 on the Nishimura Collection at Kyoto University (Human Embryo Center) . (This 

 collection consists of material from legal abortions in Japan, and contains 

 some 35,000 embryos, some 4,000 early fetuses, and over 2,000 sectioned 

 specimens.) Other chapters deal with fetal growth and the intra-uterine en- 

 vironment, the placenta, and the feto-maternal hormonal milieu. Two chapters 

 are of exclusively clinical interest (sonar and amniocentesis) . 



All chapters have extensive reference lists. In the text it is not always 

 made perfectly clear which data are original and which are not. The English 

 is often clumsy and should have been edited. The book is well produced and 

 profusely illustrated. The photographs are of very good quality and most of 

 them are original. 



29, 



M.I.SHERMAN, ed . 1977. CONCEPTS IN MAMMALIAN EMBRYOGENESIS 



MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., etc. Cell Monograph Series No.l. XXVI, 404 pp., 



40 figs., 11 tabs., subject index. E 17.50 



Contents: 1. The biology of embryogenesis , 2. The molecular biology of 

 the preimplantation embryo, 3. Genetics of early mammalian embryogenesis, 

 4. T-Complex mutations and their effects, 5. Cell surface properties of 

 early mammalian embryos, 6. Tumor virus expression during mammalian em- 

 bryogenesis, 7. Teratocarcinoma cells and normal mouse embryogenesis 



As the editor says in his Introduction, "the purpose of this monograph 

 is to provide the reader with a thorough overview of a few selected topics 

 on manmialian embryogenesis that are of current interest and interrelate 

 well with each other". The result is a resounding success. All chapters 

 are lengthy, critical, well-written and well -organised reviews by both 

 established and younger experts, most of them British or American. The 

 chapters are well integrated by cross-referencing and all authors use the 



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