The Specificity of Serological Reactions

THE SPECIFICITY OF SEROLOGICAL REACTIONS, 2nd ed. Karl Landsteiner. New York, Dover Publications, Inc., 1962. xvii, 330 pp. $2.00. This book is a paperback publication of the second, revised edition of a classic in immunology. In the eighteen years since it was first published it has not been superseded by any book. Other books, particularly Kabat and Mayer's Experimental Immunochemistry complement and add to it but do not supplant it. Despite many exciting new developments in immunology such as those in the fields of transplantation immunity and auto-immune mechanicsms which are necessarily not covered in this book, the theoretical considerations which support them are explicitly stated and thoroughly documented. In particular, the field of immunochemistry is defined and surveyed and Landsteiner's own immunochemical work on artifically conjugated antigens is presented in company with the theoretical considerations which led him to open this field. This publication has a vital place in the library of anyone who has more than a casual interest in immunology. The bibliographic references alone constitute a guide to almost all publications of importance in immunology in the first sixty years of this eighty-year-old area of microbiology. Few classics in medicine continue to be as useful as this one twenty years after they were written. HARRISON F. WOOD