The Culture of Vertebrate Embryos

THE CULTURE OF VERTEBRATE EMBRYOS. By D. A. T. New. New York and London, Academic Press, 1966. 245 pp. $14.00. The purpose of this book, as set forth in the introduction, is to describe available methods for the culture of vertebrate embryos and to note some experiments that have been performed on such embryos. It is intended to benefit both the research scientist and the biology teacher; the use of live material for teaching purposes is emphasized. The first chapter deals with the equipment, media, instruments, and general facilities employed in culture procedures. Since most suppliers of equipment and living animals mentioned are in England, portions of this chapter are of limited use to scientists in this country. Each following chapter deals with a separate vertebrate class: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibia, and fish. The author presents some detailed research experiments and data and also some of the mnethods employed in the study of these embryos-or of embryonic tissue. Fundamental but space-consuming details of histological processing, the importance of turning chicken eggs during incubation, methods for the measurement of CO2 and 02, the effect of temperature and humidity on the hatchability of chicken eggs, the importance of the size of a piece of meat to feed amphibia, etc. vie with the presentation of results dealing with the culture methods used for these embryos. More critical organization of the text might also have led to condensation of the book by the elimination of repetitive passages; repetition is particularly noticeable in the chapter dealing with amphibia. Each chapter ends with a description of the "stages of normal development" of the organisms discussed. Although these tables may serve some purpose by being collected into one text, their critical usefulness for the research scientist is limited, since many are presented in abbreviated form; taken together, however, they occupy 75 pages of the book. Most likely, therefore, this book will be useful to the teacher of biology in schools having limited libraries. For the research scientist, elimination of the many trite facets of research, a critical evaluation of vertebrate embryo cultures, and discussion of the factors bearing on the success and failure of the current methods would have made the book more stimulating and valuable.