Function and Structure in Micro-Organisms

drug toxicity. Thus Doctors Kalow, Conney, Fouts, and Remer were concerned with the effects of both individual variation in drug-metabolizing enzyme systems and of effects of other drugs such as SKF 525A on such enzymes, which can lead to marked variations in plasma levels of drug. However, as Dr. Westermann reminded us, such drugs as reserpine, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, and coumarin anticoagulants act cumulatively and nonreversibly so that plasma levels are unrelated to pharmacological effect. Induction of fatty liver by carbon tetrachloride, in contrast with the effect of ethanol, results from interference with the mobilization of triglyceride from the liver to the plasma, and is dependent on controlled body temperature rather than on adrenal function per se, according to the papers of R. Paoletti, M. Heimberg and M. G. Horning. The part played by metabolism of drugs to more toxic derivatives in over-all toxicity, forms the subject of papers by Dr. Axelrod on red cell hemolysis induced by quinimines or N-hydroxylated derivatives of aromatic amines, by Doctors Faigle and Smith who attribute fetal toxicity of thalidomide to the formation of glutamate and glutamine antimetabolites, by Dr. Magee on the formation of carcinogens from aromatic amines, amides and dialkylnitrosamines, and finally the formation of protein-binding derivatives, which, according to Dr. Little, may be the causative agents in allergic drug reactions, as for example to penicillin. Various other papers deal with such topics as the prolonged depletion of ACTH by reserpine, photosensitization by agents such as chloroquine, and the biochemistry of rodenticides. This volume, like the others in the series, is well produced, but one criticism which might be made is that there is no cumulative bibliography for all the references that are appended to each paper. With the wide range of topics covered, this book should be of great value to both the teacher and student of pharmacology, serving, as it does, as a guide to some of the more current concepts in the field of biochemical pharmacology.