Long Term and Short Term Screening Assays for Carcinogens: A Critical Appraisal

are well referenced and indexed, and discussions are included. The presentation of the book is of a high standard and is recommended as a detailed and comprehensive treatise on the use of tissue temperature in diagnosis and in therapy. It is unlikely to be bettered until many of the problems discussed have been largely solved. This is definitely one of the more worthwhile appraisals in this series and offers an acceptable foundation for anyone entering the field of carcinogen screening and a useful reference source for those already in the field. The first report is concerned with long-term assays, and details practically every pitfall of such systems. This is so important in assay systems which have so many inherent variables. Everything from the administration of the test substance, through animal caging/bedding selection, to processing of the data is discussed. The reports on 'Mutagenesis Assays in Bacteria', 'Mutagenesis Assays in Mamma-lian Cells', 'Transformation in Cell Culture' and 'Cytogenetic Damage as an end point in short-term Assay systems' are well and enthusiastically presented, detailing the ad-vatages and disadvantages of both, the particular class of screening test and the detailed and varied methods encompassed within each class. Perhaps the most interesting report in the book is that on 'Mutagenesis Assays with Whole Mammals'. This is an area that has been relatively poorly studied and theoretically represents the situation closest to that in real life. Conversely, the Yeast, Drosophila and DNA-repair chapters tend to demonstrate that these areas are outmoded. The expectation that research into neo-plasia in domestic animals would provide new insight into the origins of human cancer, led to the establishment in 1961 of the Epizoology Section within the Epidemiology branch of the National Cancer Institute. Data from 15 veterinary schools in the U.S.A. and Canada have been processed at the National Cancer Institute and the details on neoplastic disease are published in the present volume. Neoplasms in cats were mainly malignant (88%) and horses had the lowest proportion of malignant tumours (400o) with dogs (56%) and cattle (770o) intermediate. The tumours most commonly seen were: Cattle; squamous-cell carcinoma, lym-phoma, leukaemia. Horse; squamous-cell carcinoma, malig-nat melanoma, fibrosarcoma. Cat and Dog; tumours of the skin, haemo-poetic and lymphatic tissues, and mammary gland In many cases the R (summary relative risk) values are given. For all tumours in dogs the Boxer had R 3-4 and the St. Bernard 3 0. The Pekinese R value …