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however, goes over to the area of belief in the essential goodness of people. He would encourage couples highly qualified for parenthood to have larger than average families, but these are the very couples who know better than to have larger than average families. Morris Fishbein, M.D. 5454 South Shore Drive Chicago, Illinois 60615 Molecular Bioenergetics and Macromolecular Biochemistry. Meyerhof Symposium, Heidelberg, July 5-8, 1970. Edited by H. H. Weber. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1972. Pp. 197. $29.30. The symposium that led to this book coincided with the establishment of die Otto Meyerhof Professorship at the Weizmann Institute of Science, the first incumbent being Professor Leo Sachs, who contributed an excellent paper (printed here) on the mechanism of carcinogenesis to the symposium. The symposium itself was held in Heidelberg, where Meyerhof directed the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physiology from 1929 until he fled from the Nazis in 1938. Meyerhof was one of the greatest biochemists of this century, not only a superb experimentalist but one who was deeply concerned with the philosophical problems of biology. It is not surprising, therefore, that the participants in this symposium included some of the most eminent biochemists of our time. Hans H. Weber opens with a portrayal of Meyerhof's work and personality. He notes the profound influence of Otto Warburg on Meyerhof's early development . Most readers today will be surprised to learn that Meyerhof, from 1912 to 1924, held the modest position of assistant in the University of Kiel. His first junior collaborator with an academic background was H. H. Weber himself, who came in 1922 but left only 6 months later, having received a paid position elsewhere . This was the same year in which Meyerhof and A. V. Hill received the Nobel Prize for their work on muscle, which had won worldwide recognition; yet when the professorship of physiological chemistry at Kiel became vacant, Meyerhof was passed over and remained an assistant; the world does not remember the name of the appointed professor. This situation, of course, could not last; Meyerhof went shortly to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, close to Warburg, and in 1929 moved to his own institute in Heidelberg. Weber's portrayal of Meyerhof's subsequent epoch-making achievements, and of Meyerhof as a person, make essential reading for those concerned with the history of biochemistry . Meyerhof commanded the friendship and loyalty of his associates to an extraordinary degree; as Weber says, Meyerhof was not superficially amiable ("er war nicht eigentlich liebenswürdig") but he was a man of deep feeling, and his friendship, once given, was unwavering. His range of cultivation, not only in science but in art, literature, and philosophy, was immense. Sir Hans Krebs adds a short and interesting note on Meyerhof's ancestry and family, which includes many distinguished people. Tragically many of the Meyerhofs were wiped out in the Nazi holocaust, though Otto Meyerhof himself and his immediate family escaped to France and later to the United States. 292 I Book Reviews The next paper, by Bernard L. Horecker, is on aldolase, an enzyme discovered by Meyerhof tliat splits hexose diphosphate reversibly into two molecules of trióse phosphate, and thus plays a crucial role in glycolysis. Knowledge of muscle aldolase , an enzyme made up of four subunits, each with a molecular weight of 40,000, has now attained great depth and detail. Horecker traces in detail our present knowledge of the primary structure of the enzyme, the nature of its active site, and its mechanism of action. Horecker admirably shows the continuity between Meyerhof's work and that of the present day. I must treat more briefly the other contributions to the symposium, all of which are excellent in form and substance. Feodor Lynen gives a fine survey of fatty acid synthesis in yeast and of the multienzyme complex system involved. Severo Ochoa treats the ribosomal factors involved in polypeptide chain initiation ; this admirable survey is now somewhat outdated by progress in this rapidly moving field. Fritz Lipmann portrays the biosynthesis of gramicidin S and tyrocidin . Kenneth C. Holmes, now at the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg, gives a beautiful survey of the molecular structure of the actomyosin system...

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