Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
GENERAL: The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin: Including an Autobiographical Chapter. Francis Darwin
GENERAL: The Autobiography of Charles Darwin and Selected Letters. Francis Darwin
GENERAL: Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution. Gertrude Himmelfarb     

Books

Construction Ecology: Nature as the Basis for Green Buildings, edited by Charles J. Kibert, Jan Sendzimir, and G. Bradley Guy.
Sustainable Construction: Green Building Design and Delivery, by Charles J. Kibert     

Darwin’s legacy to rove beetles (Coleoptera,Staphylinidae): A new genus and a new species,including materials collected on the Beagle’s voyage

A species of xanthopygine rove beetles is described and figured here as Darwinilus sedarisi gen. n. and sp. n. The holotype was collected by Charles Darwin in Bahía Blanca, Argentina on the Beagle’s voyage. The contributions of Charles Darwin to rove beetle systematics are summarized briefly.     

Charles Nicolle and the accomplishments of his scientific thought

The author presents in this study the achievements of the scientific thought of Charles Nicolle, chiefly on the basis of two notions: the asymptomatic diseases and the destiny of infectious diseases. Recalling the factors which prevailing about the career of Charles Nicolle, he shows that the asymptomatic diseases became a fundamental notion in infectious pathology as human, animal, viral, bacterial and parasitic diseases. The notion allowed him to open the study of pathogen agents on the fields of the environment, so enriching the epidemiology, the prophylaxis and the medical ecology. After the notion of specificity of microbes pointed out by Pasteur, Charles Nicolle enlarged their implications and conceived the infinite complexity of microbes. The first he introduced in microbiology the notion of mutation and foresaw the birth, the evolution and the death of the infectious diseases. Not so long time after and now these anticipations has been proved.     

Past presidents join forces to refurbish gravesite of Sir Charles Tupper,first CMA president.

The CMA''s past presidents have donated a plaque and refurbished the headstone and plot at the Halifax gravesite of Sir Charles Tupper, the association''s first president. "Sir Charles Tupper was a very significant personality in the conception of a national medical association and the past presidents wanted that fact to be remembered," Dr. Athol Roberts says of the endeavour.     

Glycolysis and Epilepsy-Induced Changes in Cerebrocortical NAD/NADH Redox State

Book Review in this Article:
Neurology and Neurobiology, Vol. 1: Cytochemical Methods in Neuroanatomy edited by Victoria Chan-Palay and Sanford Palay. Alan R. Liss
: Mechanisms and Functions edited by J. de Belleroche.
Proteins of the Brain and Cerebrospinal Fluid in Health and Disease by Elisabeth Roboz Einstein. Charles C Thomas
The Synthesis of Carbon-11, Fluorine-18, and Nitrogen-13 Labeled Radiotracers for Biomedical Applications by J. S. Fowler and A. P. Wolf.
Thermal Sensations and Thermoreceptors in Man by Herbert Hensel. Charles C Thomas     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
Dierama, The Hairbells of Africa . O. M. Hilliard and B. L. Burtt, illustrations by Auriol Batten. 152 pp., 46 colour plates.
Trees of Hawai'i . Angela Kay Kepler. 99 pp., colour photographs.
Aphrodite's Mousetrap . E. Charles Nelson and Daniel L. McKinley. 145 pp.
Curious in Everything: the career of Arthur Dobbs of Carrickfergus 1689–1765 . Ed. by D. Helen Rankin and E. Charles Nelson X + 37 pp.     

Stock differences in the susceptibility of rats to learned helplessness training

Learned helplessness (LH) consists of shock escape deficits evidenced by animals previously exposed to inescapable shock. This phenomenon has shown promise as a behavioral screen for new antidepressant drugs. Unfortunately, some stocks of rats evidence low susceptibility to LH training. Accordingly, male rats from 8 different stocks were tested for susceptibility to LH training. The outbred stocks consisted of Harlan SD, Sasco Holtzman, and Charles River Holtzman. The inbred stocks (i.e. strains) tested were Lewis, Wistar Kyoto, Brown Norway, Fischer F-344, and Buffalo. The Lewis, Brown Norway, Fischer and Sasco Holtzman rats were found to be virtually non-susceptible to LH training. Harlan SD and Buffalo rats evidenced intermediate susceptibilities of 28% and 33%, respectively. Kyoto and Charles River Holtzman rats were the most susceptible at 53% and 55%, respectively. No stock differences between control animals were observed. These results indicate that wide differences in susceptibility to LH training exist in rats from different stocks or suppliers and researchers should be careful to choose subjects from a susceptible stock. Charles River Holtzman and Wistar Kyoto rats appear to be very susceptible to LH training.     

Charles Lyell –"the father of geology"– as a forerunner of modern ecology

In 1830, Charles Lyell published the first volume of his influential book, "The principles of geology". Young Charles Darwin took the book on board the "Beagle" and, upon his return, acknowledged the contribution it made to his own research. Lyell did not believe in transmutation and evolution, and explained the differences in the fossil fauna between different geological formations by the accumulated environmental changes over a very long geological time. He describes ecological interactions of organisms with their biotic and abiotic environment in a language similar to current ecological concepts. Lyell may be seen as one of the forerunners of modern ecology.     

Genetics of eye-gap and maroon-eye mutants in the mosquito.

Linkage analysis of two new eye mutants, eye-gap (e) and maroon-eye (mar), in the mosquito Culex pipiens, is presented. Both mutants are sex-linked, recessive, and demonstrate complete penetrance and high expressivity. The gene order is e-m-mar. The most representative map distances in e-m and m-mar segments are 17.7 and 26.1, respectively. Our maroon-eye was isolated from Belem, Brazil and is allelic to another maroon-eye mutant isolated from Lake Charles, Louisiana. However, while mar (Lake Charles) straddles along the sex locus, m (map distance approximately 1 unit), the mar (Belem) gene is far removed from m (map distance 26.1 units).     

The Roads of Chinese Childhood: Learning and Identification in Angang

The Roads of Chinese Childhood: Learning and Identification in Angang. Charles Stafford. New York: University of Cambridge Press, 1995. 213 pp.     

The Charles procedure for primary lymphedema. Long-term clinical results.

The best treatment for primary lymphedema has been a controversial point, because of the lack of clinical documentation of really long-term successful results after any therapy. We report the long-term results in 10 patients (12 extremities) after the Charles procedure. These patients were evaluated at an average period of 10 1/2 years following the surgery (4 of these extremities were examined 20 or more years following the surgery). All of them demonstrated excellent functional results; none demonstrated a recurrence of the lymphedema. We consider the Charles procedure to be the operation of choice in patients with primary lymphedema which is not responsive to conservative therapy.     

Team Spirits: The Native American Mascot Controversy

Team Spirits: The Native American Mascot Controversy. C. Richard King and Charles Fruehling Springwood. eds. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001. 356 pp.     

Sir Charles Edward Saunders, Dominion cerealist.

Charles Edward Saunders was born in London, Ontario, in 1867. His father, Sir William Saunders, was the first director of the Dominion Experimental Farms (1886-1911). Charles received his B.A. with honours in science from the University of Toronto in 1888 and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1891. He attempted a career in music, his first love, from 1893 to 1902. With his father, Charles attended the 1902 International Conference on Plant Breeding and Hybridization in New York, where he learned of Mendel's theories of inheritance and their applicability to plant breeding. When he began work in 1903 in the Division of Cereal Breeding and Experimentation at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa, he used the knowledge he had gained at that conference. It was Charles's goal to achieve "fixity" in the varieties that had been bred and released using phenotypic mass selection, prior to his tenure as Cerealist. He selected four heads from the wheat variety Markham and in the winter of 1904 he performed a "chewing test" to select for gluten elasticity and colour. Seeds from two heads were chosen, and seeds from one went on to produce the variety Marquis after extensive yield trials on the Prairies. Marquis was 7 to 10 days earlier than Red Fife, the standard bread wheat of the Prairies. The earliness and tremendous yield of Marquis wheat resulted in the rapid and successful settlement of the Great Plains and countless billions of dollars in revenue to Canada. By 1923, 90% of the spring wheat in Canada and 70% in the USA was Marquis. Charles continued as Dominion Cerealist until his retirement in 1922. He was knighted in 1934, and died in 1937.     

2nd Charles Richet et Jules Héricourt Workshop: Therapeutic antibodies and anaphylaxis; May 31–June 1, 2011; Tours,France

The Charles Richet and Jules Héricourt workshops honor the memory of Jules Héricourt (1850–1938) and Charles Richet (1850–1935) who described the principle of serotherapy in 1888 and made the very first attempts to fight cancer with serotherapy in 1895. In 1902, Charles Richet and Paul Portier described “anaphylaxis,” a discovery awarded the Nobel Prize in 1913. The first workshop, “Towards the clinical use of monoclonal antibodies with higher cytolytic efficacy in cancer” was held in Tours, France on November 20–21, 2008. The second Charles Richet and Jules Héricourt workshop, held May 31–June 1, 2011 at the University of Tours, France, was also organized by the Cancéropôle Grand Ouest. The topic of the workshop was therapeutic antibodies and anaphylaxis, a subject rarely addressed in congresses focused on mAbs. To have discussions about mAb side effects with complete objectivity, the congress was organized independently of any sponsorship from pharmaceutical companies. This academic event was motivated by the high incidence of shocks to cetuximab and the need to compile and evaluate scattered information. This growing public health concern was thus analyzed from different scientific and medical angles. The first session was devoted to acute infusion reactions, with an emphasis on deconvolution of the terms “cytokine-release syndrome,” “cytokine storms,” “anaphylaxis” and their epidemiology. This session concluded with the Charles Richet lecture on cetuximab anaphylaxis and anti-αGal IgE by Thomas Platts-Mills, its discoverer. In the next session, the involvement of anti-glycan antibodies in both anaphylaxis and delayed hypersensitivity reactions to therapeutic antibodies was discussed. A gala dinner was held in the gardens of the beautiful château of Villandry, which was acquired and restored by Joachim Carvalho, a pupil of Charles Richet''s and great-grandfather of the present owner. The final session focused on strategies to prevent cetuximab anaphylaxis in clinical practice included a variety of topics, e.g., premedication, biobetters and biosimilars, skin testing and predictive assays. All speakers and attendees enjoyed this very stimulating and rewarding meeting, which gathered many people with divergent scientific backgrounds and medical specialties.Key words: cetuximab, anaphylaxis, α-Gal epitope, anti-αGal IgE, anti-cetuximab IgE, allergy, monoclonal antibodies, glycosylation     

Parents' Cultural Belief Systems: Their Origins, Expressions, and Consequences

Parents' Cultural Belief Systems: Their Origins, Expressions, and Consequences. Sara Harkness and Charles M. Super, eds. New York: The Guilford Press, 1996. 558 pp.     

Cultural Dialectics of Knowledge and Desire

Cultural Dialectics of Knowledge and Desire. Charles Nuckolls. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996. 306 pp.     

Hydrolysis and transport of proline-containing peptides in renal brush-border membrane vesicles from dipeptidyl peptidase IV-positive and dipeptidyl peptidase IV-negative rat strains

In this investigation, we have demonstrated that the renal brush-border membrane of Fischer 344 rats from the Japanese Charles River Inc. specifically lacks dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP IV) activity, whereas the renal brush-border membrane of Fischer 344 rats from three different sources within the United States possesses normal levels of DPP IV activity. Comparison of the brush-border proteins between Charles River (U.S.A.) Fischer 344 rats (DPP IV positive) and Japanese Charles River Fischer 344 rats (DPP IV negative) revealed that a protein band (Mr = 100,000), apparently identical with DPP IV, was absent in the membranes from Japanese Charles River Fischer 344 rats. We examined the handling of radiolabeled beta-casomorphin fragment 1-5 (Tyr-Pro-[3H]Phe-Pro-Gly), a specific substrate for DPP IV, in renal brush-border membrane vesicles isolated from DPP IV-positive and DPP IV-negative rats. Although the membrane vesicles from DPP IV-positive rats were able to hydrolyze the pentapeptide to di- and tripeptides with the subsequent active transport of these products via the H+ gradient-dependent peptide transport system, the membrane vesicles from DPP IV-negative rats failed to hydrolyze the pentapeptide and hence lacked the ability to transport the radiolabel actively from the parent peptide. The H+ gradient-dependent glycyl-sarcosine uptake and the Na+ gradient-dependent proline uptake, however, were normal in DPP IV-negative rats. Urine analysis revealed that the DPP IV-negative rats excreted proline- and hydroxyproline-containing peptides in significantly increased amounts in their urine compared with control rats. Furthermore, following intravenous administration of Tyr-Pro-Phe-Pro-NH2, a peptide that is exclusively hydrolyzed by DPP IV, urinary excretion of the peptide in the intact form was many-fold greater in DPP IV-negative rats than in control rats. These data provide conclusive evidence for the obligatory role of DPP IV in the renal handling of proline (and hydroxyproline)-containing peptides.     

Ritual and Pilgrimage in the Ancient Andes: The Islands of the Sun and the Moon

Ritual and Pilgrimage in the Ancient Andes: The Islands of the Sun and the Moon. Brian S. Bauer and Charles Stanish. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.330 pp.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Archeology: The Pagan Celts . Anne Ross .
Archeology: Celtic Britain . Charles Thomas .
Archeology: The Gods of the Celts . Miranda Green .