Body Water in Man. The Acquisition and Maintenance of the Body Fluids

symposium agree with my concept. Many of the essays are concerned chiefly with clinical chemistry, as reflected in how to do urine tests or interpret blood studies. Considerable portions of certain chapters are devoted to purely practical applications of clinical tests (e.g. of liver function) without any consideration of their biochemical significance. In spite of these editorial criticisms, this book has many chapters of great merit. I was especially impressed by D. A. K. Black's discussion of the gastrointestinal tract, MacFarlane's essay on blood clotting, Milne's discussion of renal function and disease, Jailer and Longson on the adrenal, and Wolff and Goldberg on iodine metabolism, to mention a few. Some of the other chapters were less meritorious; indeed, MacLagan's discussion of the liver seemed totally out of place in such a book as this. (I find it difficult to understand how one could discuss biochemical disorders in liver disease without even mentioning that the liver is the chief place in the body where urea is formed, for example). On the whole, although the book does not entirely fulfill its purpose, as I conceive it, the excellence of much of the discussion justifies its use as a reference book, particularly for biochemists and medical students who will find the absence of formally presented biochemical concepts less of a problem than the medical practitioner.