Cells and tissues in culture :methods, biology and physiology (volume 3)

In this third volume there are considered some of the applications of the methods of tissue culture to a wide variety of fields of investigation. Such methods have been of exceptional importance in the study of viruses and indeed of great practical and medical value in several branches of virology, immunology and preventive medicine. They are also the methods of choice for the study of the cytological effects of radiation. Tissue culture methods have so far been applied only in a more limited way to the tissues of the invertebrates, but the importance of these studies can now be clearly recognized. Curiously enough, their application to the study of plant tissues lagged behind the corresponding research on animal tissues, but the last four chapters in this volume make it quite clear that great progress has now been made in this field too, and biologists in general will find that the comparison of the observations on plant tissues with those on animal tissues makes a fascinating study. The compilation of these volumes has been achieved by the ready cooperation of the authors, the publishers and the printers. As might well have been expected, there have been difficulties, delays, defections and deaths; nevertheless, it is hoped that the final result, though perhaps not so "up to the minute" as one might have wished, will give the reader a valuable and general picture of the scientific progress achieved by tissue-culture methods during their first sixty or so years of existence, and that it will prove to be a stimulus to future research for many years to come. The editor wishes again to express his thanks not only to the authors, but also to those who have helped him in the preparation of the indexes, without which much of the valuable information contained in these volumes might for ever lie buried and inaccessible. The subject index for this third volume was prepared with the assistance of Miss J. Lapwood and Mr. P. Shoenberg. His thanks also go to all those who have given permission for the use of photographs and illustrations for the illumination of the text.