FOREWORD 



A foreword, like an aperitif, should whet the appetite without 

 dulling the critical appreciation of what is to follow. Many 

 wise people therefore avoid them. Nevertheless, it is a personal 

 pleasure for me to be asked to provide one to this volume, for the 

 initiation of which I was, at least in part, responsible. 



Specialized scientific publications in these days may be broadly, 

 and thus inaccurately, divided into scientific papers summarizing 

 experiments, reviews summarizing scientific papers, and books 

 summarizing reviews. Among the multitude of these last, the 

 really interesting book is all too rare — one with a broad but 

 scholarly treatment, which stimulates the reader to think about 

 the subject, to produce his own ideas and to design his own 

 experiments. Such a book must provide a sufficiently clear account 

 of the experimental techniques for the student to appreciate the 

 methods of study and their limitations; it must establish a 

 theoretical background which gives coherence to the subject as a 

 whole; finally it must tread sufficiently near to the frontiers of 

 knowledge to provide a glimpse of what may lie beyond. 



Such a stimulus has already reached several generations of 

 Bristol students through Dr. Jenkin's lectures on hormones; I 

 hope that in its present form her book will successfully challenge 

 a wider audience. 



John E. Harris 



