New Methods of Cell Physiology By Otto Heinrich Warburg (review)

in which he quoted many examples ofthe importance ofimaginative thinking, especially in the formulation ofworking hypotheses and in the search for the relationship between cause and effect. In his lecture van't Hoffexpressed the view that imaginative thought in science is closely allied to artistic creativeness. Having studied the biographies of two hundred outstanding scientists, he found major artistic traits in fifty-two ofthem. They included Ampère, Boyle, Copernicus, Davy, Descartes, Faraday, Galileo, Hallé, von Haller, Kepler, Leibnitz, Leonardo da Vinci, Linnaeus, Newton, Pascal, Poisson, Volta, Watt. Van't Hoffconsidered the combination of artistic qualities with critical judgment andreasoning as aparticularly importantfeature ofthementalmake-up ofthe outstanding scientist. Van't Hoff's lecture still makes most interesting reading. The original Dutch text has been translated into German by Ernst Cohen in his biographyJacobus Henricus van't Hoff, sein Leben und Wirken (Leipzig 1912, pages 150-165 and 127-131). In fact, this lecture is telling testimony to the fundamental value ofmany ofthe essays found in this volume dedicated to Charles Huggins—and to the raison d'être ofthisJournal. H. A. Krebs University ofOxford New Methods ofCell Physiology. By Otto Heinrich Warburg. New York: Interscience, 1962. $34.50. The truth is always the strongest argument. Sophocles The reviewer has been privileged to use this book as a laboratory manual under the tutelage ofthe author. I take the liberty ofquoting Otto Warburg freely: "It's not the interpretations that are achievements; but the good experiments. Interpretations are always wrong, at least in the sense that they are incomplete; good experiments are right forever. Your interpretations are your working hypotheses, so you want to be careful with them. A bad interpretation will prevent you from making progress. A good interpretation is one that keeps you moving ahead, but as you learn more you have to develop and change the interpretation. When this happens your old experiments should be so good that they are still a guide to the better new interpretation." We should not wonder that a man who holds these views sets great store on good experimental technique and that he wants his book to be known from the title as a book about methods. But this is, as one would expect, much more than an ordinary methods book. It is the masterly application of the methods to the solution of problems in cell physiology that the student should find most instructive. The book is, in fact, a collection of the research papers of Otto Warburg, covering the period 1945-1961. An introduction, written by the author in both English and German, begins with a briefscientific autobiography and goes on to summarize the main achievements ofthe Dahlem laboratory, placing the recent discoveries in the context of 385 earlier work. Dean Burk's biography of Warburg follows. More than one hundred papers make up the bulk ofthe book, arranged approximately in chronological order. They may be classified according to content as follows: enzymes ofrespiration, 9 papers; manometric procedures, n; metabolism ofcancer cells and mechanism ofX-ray action, 26; and photosynthesis, 56. The language is that of the original papen themselves, partly English, but mainly German. This should not frighten the research scientist—not even an American one. Warburg's inimitable style is so simple and clear that it presents no difficulties to readers with only an elementary knowledge ofscientific German. It was Otto Warburg who first worked out the chemistry and mode ofaction ofthe functional groups ofthe oxidation-reductionenzymes—andtherebywrotethe first chapter in the history ofthe mechanism ofenzyme action. No one demonstrated so clearly as he the accessibility ofa physiological process like cell respiration to experimental attack by the methods ofphysics and chemistry. Otto Warburg taught the physiologists that they could be chemists. Now we biochemists are so eager to be promoted to the status of chemists that we often forget that the problems we are committed to solve are problems in physiology. And there are other things that we forget—such as the sources of our knowledge. We are, therefore, particularly happy that the paper "Über die Kristallisation von Gärungsfermenten und ihre optischen Teste" has been reprinted here from "Wassertoffubertragende Fermente" (now out of print), for the student should not ignore...