BIBLIOGRAPHY

M. Kamen. Radioactive Tracers in Biology. Translated from the English, with an introductory article by D. E. Grodziansky. State Publishing House of Foreign Literature. Moscow, 1948. 434 pp.

Owing to the great advances in nuclear physics achieved in recent years, the method of labeled atoms is becoming accessible to an ever larger number of laboratories. There is no doubt that in the future this powerful method of scientific research will become still more widely disseminated. The timely appearance of Kamen’s book, which explains the principles underlying the method of radioactive tracers, is therefore understandable.

The first chapters of the book are devoted to a survey of the principal experimental data of nuclear physics. The general properties of radioactive elements and their radiations, methods for obtaining and separating radioactive isotopes, and certain methods of recording nuclear radiations are considered.

The remaining part of the book is devoted mainly to the biologically most important radioactive isotopes. The choice of these isotopes is also determined by the existence, in some of them, of features requiring the use of special experimental techniques. Work carried out with H³, C¹¹, C¹⁴, P³², S³⁵ is considered in comparatively great detail; work with metallic radiations of Na²⁴, Cl³⁸, K⁴², Fe⁵⁹, Br⁸², etc., is treated less thoroughly.

In the final chapter the applications of radioactive isotopes in medicine are briefly considered.

Acquainting biologists with the experimental methods of nuclear physics is, of course, no easy task. One cannot demand that a book intended primarily for biologists give a detailed analysis of even the principal methods for recording nuclear radiations. It should therefore be regarded as correct that the method of Geiger counters—the simplest, most accessible, and at present most widespread—has been considered in greater detail. Much attention, in particular, is given to the end-window Geiger–Müller counters usually used in studies of biologically important isotopes emitting soft β-particles. Unfortunately, the completeness of the exposition of the Geiger-counter method is impaired by excessive brevity in the discussion of the important question of introducing corrections. As a result, the presentation of this question in the book under review is unlikely to be of practical value for biologists. Meanwhile, it is precisely in this respect that the latter most often encounter the greatest difficulties. In addition, certain errors have crept in, having passed through both American editions of the book and remained uncorrected in the Russian translation.

Thus, in Table 1 (p. 87), which gives the dependence of the range of β-particles on their energy, the ranges are everywhere expressed in milligrams instead of grams. The same error is made (for consistency with the table?) in

p. 90, and in the well-known empirical formula \(R = 0.543 E_{\max} - 0.160\). “Corrections” introduced on the basis of such data will obviously distort any biological effects!

An important special case of the formula, allowing for the omission of counts by the recording apparatus owing to the dead time of the latter, is also given incorrectly. According to the formula presented in the book (p. 130), the number of counted particles would be greater than the number of particles actually entering the counter!

These and a number of other minor errors cannot diminish the great value of the book. Although it is intended above all for biologists, it is undoubtedly also of interest to physicists, who in recent times have increasingly been drawn into work using the method of radioactive labeled atoms.

L. Bel