Clinical Genetics: A Source Book for Physicians Edited by Laird G. Jackson and R. Neil Schimke (review)

scientific is, she says, what is "systematic, effective and well-related to the findings of other disciplines." Regrettably, she shares this error with many scientists who believe that anything consistent or logical or quantitative or close-to-fact is scientific . We should stress with Sir Karl Popper, however, that science is the progressive verification of hypotheses by experimental disproof of their alternatives. The operational word is experimental: "experiment is all." And, so, anything— anything—which can be tested by potentially falsifying experimentation is grist for the scientific mill. Even with its occasional errors, logic chopping, and adversary stances, this book is a stouthearted and stimulating effort to bring biology and philosophy together. Scientists, too, must applaud any philosophical treatise which starts from the material world (so rare since Descartes) and works its way in toward the mind ofman, rather than attempting to impose that mind upon reality. Aristotle, too, would be pleased. R. J. Doyle University of Windsor Windsor, Ontario Clinical Genetics: A Source Bookfor Physicians. Edited by Laird G. Jackson and R. Neil Schimke. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1979. Pp. 652. $35.00. Medical genetics has been in rapid growth for more than a decade. Unfortunately this specialized area has been the domain of the medical scientist and geneticist with academic affiliations and almost terra incognita for the physician and clinician. Much of the literature appears in journals and volumes which are not likely to be available to physicians or clinicians. Only the relatively recent graduates of medical schools with strong basic research programs are likely to have had a course in medical genetics. Clinical Genetics is addressed to those physicians and clinicians who have more than a passing interest in inherited diseases. The lead chapter on the fundamentals of genetics is so terse as to be almost meaningless in providing the basic information and background for the purported audience. There is no substitute for a basic textbook of human genetics to cover an academic deficiency. The remaining chapters were written by one or more specialists and are organized into three areas: multisystem disease, organ system diseases, and genetic counseling. These specialists have met the objectives of the book: "to compile most of the current information in clinical medical genetics into a single volume emphasizing its clinical application." Moreover, each chapter has extensive references to guide the inquiring physician or clinician through the pertinent and current literature. Clinical Genetics provides ready entry into an area of medicine with considerable input from basic research in molecular biology and demonstrates the growing interaction between basic research and clinical application. E. D. Garber Department ofBiology University of Chicago Perspectives in Biology and Medicine ¦ Autumn 1980 | 163 ...