VI PREFACE 



referred to in the current phage Uterature. The sentence "the 

 methods employed in this work are those described by Adams, 

 etc.," is almost like a ritual invocation used by every phage 

 worker, with a sigh of relief, relieving him of the necessity of an 

 otherwise burdensome chore. 



Phage research has also been discussed in, and its knowledge 

 disseminated through, numerous, perhaps too numerous, review 

 articles, but there has been no book covering the whole field 

 since 1926, long before the modern era of this field. The fact is 

 that the literature on this subject has grown so complex as to 

 deter everybody, except Mark Adams. I do not believe, in fact, 

 that anybody, besides Adams, had the qualifications for this 

 task. Adams started writing this book several years ago, and 

 even he, in spite of his tremendous knowledge, critical ability, 

 and superb expository gifts, found the going very hard. On 

 October 17, 1956, Mark Adams died, of an acute infection, at 

 the age of 44. At that time about three-quarters of the chapters 

 of this book were in a semi-finished state, the rest not begun. 

 Some of the chapters had been finished recently, and were up 

 to date. Some had been written several years ago and needed 

 additions and revision. All of them needed some editing. At 

 the request of Mrs. Adams, a committee consisting of A. D. 

 Hershey, R. D. Hotchkiss, A. M. Pappenheimer, Jr., and E. 

 Racker, in consultation with the publisher, went over the 

 manuscript and decided that several specialists should be invited 

 to write the missing chapters, while Hershey volunteered to edit 

 the others. After proceeding with this plan for some time, it 

 became clear that the editorial job was greater than anticipated, 

 and could not be completed by one man within a reasonable 

 length of time. Accordingly, an inquiry was sent around asking 

 for volunteers for the editing of individual chapters, the over-all 

 editorial responsibility to remain in the hands of Hershey. This 

 inquiry met with a wide response, and the plan was promptly 

 executed. 



Accordingly we now have before us, for the first time in thirty 

 years, a book on bacteriophages, reasonably complete, reason- 



