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THE author of this valuable book, Dame Janet Vaughan, is one of the most respected and beloved of Britain's women scientists. Until recently she was Principal of Somerville College Oxford, and the Honorary, but very active, Director of a flourishing M.R.C. Group in Oxford working on Bone-seeking Isotopes. Her knowledge of bone and of the people who study bone is unparalleled. Dame Janet modestly states in her Preface that the book is a bird's eye view, and she hopes that it may be of use to medical students and their teachers. In fact it is a book which everyone working in the fields of bone and mineral metabolism, whether laboratory scientist, metabolic physician or orthopaedic surgeon, will read with profit-not only because "The Physiology of Bone" is a mine of information and of valuable modern references to the literature, but also because of the author's infectious enthusiasm and mature judgment. Dame Janet never pretends that a question has been answered satisfactorily when in her view it has not. As a result, any budding research worker in the bone field will find in her book a host of good problems to work on-and that alone would make the price of the book a first-class investment. The enormous interest in bone physiology and mineral metabolism in recent years, and the great advances in knowledge which have been made, amounting to a revolution in calcium biology, have stemmed from technical advances-in electron microscopy, microradiography, histo-chemistry, autoradiography, X-ray diffraction and protein chemistry-but the most significant achievements have resulted from the use of radioactive isotopes to follow the flux of mineral ions between gut and bone and kidney. Dame Janet's own research has centred around the use of isotopes, so not unnaturally isotope work is treated very fully and authoritatively in the book under review. Nevertheless, the author treads through the wider morasses and minefields of bone structure, chemistry and function with only an occasional slip. Her knowledge is vast, and her judgment is sure. Above all she stimulates, exemplifying the quotation at the beginning of her book, "Take from the altar of knowledge the fire not the ashes." J.J.P.

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