book will be to the graduate student looking ance.
ance. Attention is also focused on the role of
for a general introduction to give a basic
grounding in macrophage biology and a lot
of now historical references.
John Stewart
Industrial Inorganic Chemistry. By W.
BOchner, R. Sch/iebs, G. Winter, and K.
H. BOcheL Pp. 614. VCH
Verlagsgesellschaft, Weinheim. 1989.
DM 145.00, s
This book fills an important niche in its
sector. Industrial scientists and engineers,
academics, and students can be recom-
mended to turn to it with reasonable con-
fidence that the most important areas are
described - with but a few omissions - with
coverage ranging from adequate to author-
itative. The traditional heavy inorganic in-
dustries are described; the strong acids and
bases, nitrogen, phosphorus, halides, etc.
Each of the principal metals - including
alkali and alkaline earths, aluminium, chro-
mium and silicon - has a chapter. In addi-
tion, chemically-based products are de-
scribed including silicates, inorganic fibres,
constructional materials, special products:
e.g. pigments and nuclear chemistry.
Although some modern high-technology
products are treated - e.g. silicon carbide -
others such as silicon nitrides are absent.
Another omission is a chapter on the chemi-
cally-related aspects of the electronics indus-
try. The translation is generally of a high
standard, athough occasional lapses occur, as
in the use of some German mineral names.
The layout of the text is unusual: parallel
columns give the main text, tables, etc. while
key words are given in a wide marginal
column. The book is to be recommended for
those seeking a broad overview as well as
specific guidance.
F. P. Glasser
Novel Aspects of Insect-Plant
Interactions. Edited by Pedro Barbosa
and Deborah K. Letoorneau. Pp. 362.
Wiley-lnterscience, Chichester. 1988.
s clature, source (synthesis), properties, bio-
The subject matter of this book is more
specialized than the title might suggest. It
deals primarily with the role of allelochemic-
als in the interrelationships between insects
and plants. The editors argue that the typical
food web, which characterizes any ecological
community, is paralleled by an analogous
network of chemically mediated interactions
between the participating species. Thus to
understand fully the structure of the com-
munity we must appreciate the nature,
scope, and scale of these chemical interac-
tions. The book sets out, therefore, to ex-
plore these possible relationships.
The chapters, written by different authors,
cover a diversity of topics ranging from the
role of plant allelochemicals in host selection
by entomophagous insects and the sequester-
ing of chemicals by insects for mimicrfl
defencc to the possible role of these chemic-
als in the development of insecticide resist-
phy given at the end of each chapter is well
microbial allelochemicals in invertebrate
ecology.
Taken together, these chapters present
some novel, interesting, and thought-
provoking material that should prove ge-
nuinely valuable to anyone researching in-
sect/plant interactions. They will also appeal,
in prescribed doses, to final-year under-
graduate students. This is not, however, a
well structured book. The 'Conceptual
Framework' and the somewhat illogical
arrangement of sections and chapters is a not
always successful attempt to link together
papers of disparate content.
In summary, Barbosa and Letourneau is
an entertaining and worthwhile read but
should be approached with a healthy cynic-
ism and a wilful disregard for the more
idiosyncratic usages of the English language.
1. D. Hodkhtson
Essentials of Medicinal Chemistry. 2nd
Edn. By Andrejus Korolkovas. Pp. 1204.
Wiley, Chichester. 1988. s
This book consists of seven parts - introduc-
tion (basic principles of drug design and
action), psychopharmacological agents,
pharmacodynamic agents, chemotherapeutic
agents, drugs for metabolic diseases and
endocrine function, vitamins and hormones,
and miscellaneous agents.
Several single-volume texts arc available
in medicinal chemistry with their different
emphasis and treatment of the many aspects
of the interdisciplinary area covered by the
subject, i.e. synthesis, design, mode of ac-
tion, drug-receptor binding (structure-
activity relationships) as well as pharmacody-
namics (metabolism) and side effects. This
book covers nearly all these aspects for diffe-
rent groups of drugs, using a division based
on pharmacological action rather than
biochemical mechanism. Within each divi-
sion (or sub-division) specific diseases/
ailments are considered from the stand-point
of history of drug development; types of
drugs in use; their mechanism of action; and
individual drug profiles embracing nomen-
transformation, incompatibilities, bioavaila-
bility, dosage, storage, and assay.
This book is a useful reference book,
rather than a course book in medicinal che-
mistry, although it has several minor short-
comings. The drug profiles tend to deal with
well-established drugs rather than newer en-
trants to the clinic. Certain information on
established drugs or those in clinical trials/
newly introduced is not included. For exam-
ple, bupivacaine is not now used in Bier's
block; sulphasalazine has been replaced by
suitably formulated 5-amino-salicylic acid;
new anticoagulant drugs (thrombin inhibi-
tors) and pyridoxal phosphate-dependent en-
zyme inhibitors are absent.
The book is well written and produced,
although many terms used are North Amer-
ican in origin. The text is relatively free from
errors e . g . p . 582, pyrethric acid; p. 893, V
VI; p. 920, Langerhans; and the bibliogra-
referenced. t
H.'J. Smith
Geological Maps. Their Solution and
Interpretation. By T. BoRon. Pp. 144.
Cambridge University Press. 1989.
Hardback s US$47.50; paperback
s
Geological maps are a widely used means of
communicating interpreted geological in-
formation. They are two-dimensional repre-
sentations of the complex and imperfectly
known three-dimensional Earth. The ability
to envisage geological structures in three
dimensions is therefore essential to the
understanding of geological maps. The book
develops a geometrical understanding of
folds, faults, and unconformities by present-
ing exercises utilizing boreholes, block dia-
grams, cross-sections, dip information, stra-
tigraphy, "traditional' idealized problem
maps, and British Geological Survey maps.
While basically pictorial, the book is some-
times short on textual explanation (e.g.
answers to Map 27) and block diagrams
illustrating the relationship between dipping
beds and topography would have been useful
inclusions. The approach adopted is deliber-
ately elementary and no opportunity is pro-
vided to develop interpretative skills in fields
such as environmental or hydrocarbon geolo-
gy. Although it may compete with other
more sophisticated books, by concentrating
on practical work it occupies its own niche. It
probably is unique in offering worked solu-
tions to the exercises. This book provides an
opportunity for the spatially 'dyslexic" to
learn elementary map interpretation and to
practice the skill in both idealized and realis-
tic exercises. It will bewelcomed by those
struggling to grasp the complexities of the
geological map.
Michael Browne
Australian Science in the Making. Edited
by R. 14/.Home. Pp. 413. Cambridge
University Press. 1989. s
US$65.00.
This volume, sponsored by the Australian
Academy of Science in celebration of the
bicentenary of Australia's first settlement by
Europeans, addresses the theme: q~ian's
attempts to understand Nature in an Austra-
lian environment'. That might seem to prom-
ise analysis of how the sciences of Nature
developed in a region already, if only vague-
ly, known to Europeans before 1788 as a seat
of novelty. But, apart from aboriginal in-
habitants' conceptions of Nature and early
observations of these people by Europeans,
the authors of this collection of essays tend to
reveal other concerns. Their emphases are
on debts to western culture in Australian
colonial society, on distant authority and
translated squabbles, on patronage and orga-
nizations. Yet how different were circumst-
ances for scientific enterprise in colonial Au-
stralia from those in other such remote out-
posts last century? Did not a more striking
189