Book Notes

Lawrence M. Principe and Lloyd DeWitt. Transmutations: Alchemy in Art. Selected Works from the Eddleman and Fisher Collections at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2002. vii + 40 pp. Ill. $25.00 (paperbound, 0-941901-32-7).

This celebratory publication marks the inception of the Chemical Heritage Foundation's Roy Eddleman Research Museum, which is intended to advance scholarship and education in "the arena of paintings, apparatus, and instrumentation" (p. vii). An essay, "Transmutations: Alchemy in Art," is illustrated with reproductions of almost one hundred paintings. A short section entitled "Collecting Chemists" discusses chemists who have collected art. In addition to a foreword and acknowledgments, the book contains a list of eight sources for further reading.

The Editors

Christopher C. Booth. A Physician Reflects: Herman Boerhaave and Other Essays. Occasional Publication no. 2. London: Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London, 2003. xiii + 206 pp. Ill. £15.00 + postage (paperbound, 0-85484-093-1).

This collection of fifteen essays by a notable physician with a long-standing interest in the history of medicine ranges from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. The author "considers the impact of inspired individuals such as Herman Boerhaave, Samuel Gee, Sir Thomas Lewis and Sir Austin Bradford Hill. He addresses issues including medical collegiality, the dilemmas facing medical editors, and the ability, or otherwise, of the medical profession to accept unexpected or unwanted findings such as the link between smoking and cancer" (p. vii). The book also includes a foreword by Tilli Tansey.

The Editors

Arsen P. Fiks. Self-Experimenters: Sources for Study. Edited by Paul A. Buelow. Bibliographies and Indexes in Medical Studies, no. 16. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003. xiv + 292 pp. $79.95 (0-313-32348-8).

The author of this book intended it to be a "dictionary of self-experiments," and some 245 pages are devoted to a list of "physicians, biologists, bacteriologists, pharmacologists, chemists, physicists, business-people, and scholars in non-medical fields" (p. vii) who engaged in deliberate experiments using themselves as subjects. The author's own entry reads as follows:

Fiks, Arsen Philipp. 1930-2001. Russia. U.S.A. M.D.

Category: Oncology

Experiment: 1968-1975, Odessa. Transplantation of cancer. Specifically, is it possible to inadvertently transplant the most malignant types of cancer along with a "normal" cadaverous organ?

Procedure: Experimenter transplanted into himself suspensions of malignant cells taken from several donors in the course of several experiments: 1) malignant tumors of the testicles, 2) chorioncarcinoma of the uterus, 3) lymph node metastasis of skin melanoma. Before, during, and after the transplantation the recipient was taking azathiotropine and/or Imuran.

Result: Local reaction after each experiment. Histological analysis of the first and seventh experiments showed chronic inflammation and resorption process. The seven attempts to allogenically transplant malignant tumors had negative results.

Conclusion/Contribution: Malignant tumors are not transmissible.

Bibliography A: Fiks, A. (1982). Allogenic transplantations of human malignant tumors. Paper presented at the 13th International Cancer Congress.

Bibliography C: WhAm [Who Was Who in America] 00; WhoCr [Who's Who in Cancer Professionals and Facilities]; WhoWor [Who's Who in the World] 01.

Bibliographic entries are categorized as (A) the experimenter's own publications, (B) publications about the experimenter or experiment, or (C) biographical and historical references to the experimenter. An appendix discusses the categories, and references are presented in three separate sections (self-experimentation, medical history, and general biographical). The book also contains a memorial note about the author, who died in 2001 at the age of seventy-one.

The Editors

John Inglis, Joseph Sambrook, and Jan Witkowski, eds. Inspiring Science: Jim Watson and the Age of DNA. Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Press, 2003. xxxi + 503 pp. Ill. $35.00 (0-87969-698-2).

Some forty colleagues of James Watson have contributed to this celebratory volume, which is intended to "record friendship and appreciation" (p. xi). The book moves from Watson's student days (with essays...