MISCELLANEA

Some immunity to obscurity

The Dictionary of Immunology (4th edn)

edited by W. /. Herbert, P. C. Wilkinson and D. 1. Stott, Academic Press, 7 995. f 75.00

(177 pages) ISBN 0 12 752026 0

Mike Clark

Dept of Pathology,

Cambridge University, Tennis

Court Road, Cambridge,

UK CB2 IQP.

From the preface, I gather that this edition is restructured radically com- pared with the third edition, which was published in 1985. However, I have to confess that this is the first time I have taken a proper look at this book! Now, having kept this edition around me, browsing into it at ran- dom, or looking up specific terms as the need arose, I wish that I had discovered this book back in 1978 when I started out on my Ph.D. stud- ies. I was a biochemistry graduate and had joined Cesar Milstein to work on a project involving the new hybridoma technology, and so, at the same time, I started to attend the Cambridge Immunology Group semi- nars and I also joined in with a local immunology journal club. I recall many occasions when I completely lost track of the discussions, too embarrassed to admit that I did not understand much

Michael H. Malamy

Tufts University School of

Medicine, Boston, MA 02111, USA.

202

of the jargon in use! Why is it that we, as scientists, seem to feel the need to create new acronyms and esoteric terms to describe our work to others? Many of these terms are even obscure to other scientists working in closely related, but different, fields - an ex- ample of such a victim being myself during my transition from biochem- istry to immunology! How then can we complain when our studies are comprehended so poorly by the gen- eral public? This is obviously where dictionaries of scientific terms have a significant role. In the present context, I am sure that this book would prove highly useful to those, working in cell biology, who find themselves using or consulting papers and discussions of an immunological nature. Most im- munological terms I looked up were described and demystified in a very amenable but concise way, using lan- guage and terms that should be ac- cessible to a wider, scientifically edu- cated audience.

The book includes many useful tables summarizing, for example, the prop- erties of the many cell-surface antigens classified as ‘clusters of differentiation antigens’, or CD1 to CDwl30 antigens, and defining them correctly in terms of their reactivities with panels of monoclonal antibodies. I did encounter some deficiencies, mainly associated with cross-referencing of terms; as an example, there are many autoim- mune diseases described throughout the dictionary, but none of these is

referenced under the definition of ‘au- toimmune disease’. Also, to keep the book to a reasonable size, the preface claims that some terms have been dropped to make way for new ones, and, for example, I was disappointed to see that a term I frequently have to define in my own work - isoallotype - was missing in this dictionary. I can well imagine certain immunologists arguing the semantics of some of the definitions - such as whether ‘hyper- variable regions’ are the same as ‘com- plementarity determining regions’, or is ‘complement fixation’ merely ‘an older synonym for complement acti- vation’. Still, if you can appreciate such semantic arguments, you are probably not in need of these diction- ary definitions!

This is a very convenient and useful work, its size and concise wording making it practical to keep handy for quick referencing at all times. How- ever, for my desktop use, I would also like to see the equivalent of this work in a computer-readable form with full indexing, cross-referencing and hypertext links (in this respect, I direct readers to The Dictionary of Cell Biology, which is available on the World Wide Web). To any scientist or student attempting to penetrate the literature on immunological research and having difficulties with some of the opaque terminology, I can thoroughly recommend this book, especially if used in conjunction with standard text books.

Addictive reading for the family?

Microbes, Bugs and Wonder Drugs: Potions to Penicillin,

Aspirin to Addiction

by Fran Balkwill and Mic Rolph, with Victor Darley-Usmar, Portland Press,

7 995. f 12.99 (728 pages) ISBN 1 85578 065 8

This is the first volume in the ‘Making sense of science’ series from Portland Press. The target audience is ‘children, teenagers and families’. The text on

the back cover states that the book ‘fo- cuses on the drugs that children and teenagers will most likely have come into contact with, whether they be as- pirin or alcohol, penicillin or cannabis’. As would be expected given the audi- ence, this book makes extensive use of illustrations, including excellent draw- ings of cells and pathogens, as well as pop-art drawings and comic strips.

The authors have assumed a monu- mental task in attempting to present ‘science’ in a comprehensible form for an audience presumably ranging in age from childhood to maturity. It is truly difficult to educate a readership, possessing widely varying degrees of education and scientific knowledge, in the actions of antibiotics, pain killers and psychotropic drugs. Even scien- tists attempting to explain their own fields to other scientists from different

fields experience difficulties. To attempt to teach such a range of subjects to a lay audience, which apparently con- sists of all pre-teen, teenage and adult non-scientists, in a book of just over 100 pages seems an impossible task, and, judging by various reactions to this book, so it has proved to be. The authors have produced a volume that cannot be handled by junior-school children, or even by teenagers outside of a classroom setting or without in- structional backup. For ‘family’ read- ing, the family in question would have to include at least one member with a significant exposure to courses in bio- chemistry and cell biology.

Although there is much to be learned from this book for the non-biology- oriented adult, or an advanced teen- ager, provided that the book is read closely and with frequent reference to

trends in CELL BIOLOGY (Vol. 6) May 1996