Two Centuries of Medicine

The material covered in this volume is the text of a series of papers presented at a colloquium on rapid mixing and sampling techniques held in 1964. This reviewer cannot comment on the value of this book for the expert but it is quite certain that it is of limited value to the biochemist not highly trained in the field of instrumentation. Little effort has been made by the editors to make this book more comprehensible to the nonexpert; in fact, their sole visible effort to promote this aim is in the form of a single explanatory footnote. The organization of papers within each section appears to be quite random and does little to help orient the novice. The discussions presented after each group of papers are occasionally enlightening, but are sometimes made rather cryptic by the use of undefined abbreviations. The first part of the book is concerned with methods for rapidly mixing reagents where the subsequent reaction is usually followed by direct spectral measurements. The highly advanced techniques presently available for measurement and recording of spectral changes makes the mixing process limiting in efforts to extend this method to faster reactions. The second portion of the book contains papers describing techniques for the rapid removal and quenching of samples from a reaction mixture. The major problem limiting the use of this technique is the problem of quenching the reaction. The second section of the book is therefore intimately related to the first since the quenching procedure is primarily a problem of mixing the reaction mixture with the quenching agent. The principle value of this book to the biochemist who is not familiar with the subtleties involved in this type of instrumentation is in providing an awareness of new methods. The actual implementation of these methods by the nonexpert will require considerably more extensive information than is provided in this volume. MICHAEL CAPLOW