The Physiology of Sense Organs

to the non-sporeforming anaerobes (Bacteroidaceae, anaerobic cocci, Lacto-bacteria and Corynebacteria, Actinomycetes). The book by Smith and Holdeman, published as part of the American Lecture Series in Clinical Microbiology, fills a void. Both authors have been working in the Anaerobic Bacteriology Laboratory at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute for years and draw on extensive experience, particularly in the field of anaerobic methodology. Following a discussion of the theory of anaerobiosis, of methods and taxonomy, a systematic approach is taken to morphology, biochemistry, serology, ecology, and pathology of each group. Clinical aspects are not covered in detail. Approximately 50 tables and 20 excellent illustrations-in part colored, all drawn from life-supplement the text. Each chapter has its own reference section which draws from older as well as from the most recent literature in several languages. The book is equally important for the research-oriented and for the practical bacteriologist. The reader is impressed with the thoroughness of the text and with the undogmatic approach to the difficult problems of taxonomy and isolation. Much of the information, in particular on the isolation of anaerobes with the help of antibiotics, on the anaerobic vibrios, and on clostridial toxins, has never been presented coherently elsewhere. The facultative pathogenicity of many anaerobes is stressed. It is only in this framework that the reviewer wishes to express a minor criticism: the role of some anaerobes as part of the flora in the upper gastrointestinal tract and in the female genital tract has been underemphasized. But this deficiency is by far outweighed by the merits of the book in the areas mentioned. It should be on hand in every Clinical Bacteriology laboratory. Sensory physiology, the analysis of receptor organs and the neuronal messages they send into the central nervous system, is one of the most well-developed of the subdivisions and disciplines related to neurophysiology. In attempting to understand how various aspects of stimulus energy are transduced and then signaled into the central nervous system, sensory physiologists provide an avenue toward understanding the central nervous system itself in all its baffling complexity. In its modern form, sensory physiology is less than fifty years old. In that time busy physiologists and biophysicists have produced an enormous literature. Nevertheless, Professor DeForest Mellon, Jr., in The Physiology of Sense Organs, is undaunted by the task of introducing sophisticated beginners to sensory physiology in less than 100 pages of text and figures. Professor Mellon accomplishes this …