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Dangerous Heritage RADIATION, GENES, AND MAN. By Bruce Wallace and Th. Dobzhansky. 205 pp. New York: Henry Holt & Co. $3.95. By JONATHAN N. LEONARD DOES mankind face extinction because of genetic radiation damage? In "Radiation, Genes, and Man," geneticists Bruce Wallace of Cornell and Th. Dobzhansky of Columbia answer "no-but." Their "but" is cautious and low-pitched to avoid alarmism; it offers no comfort to reckless men who would like to make free with radiation, either in peace or in war. Authors Wallace and Dobzhansky are population geneticists, which means that they study the hereditary behavior of large groups of living organisms, usually fruit flies but sometimes microbes, mice or men. A simple experiment is to mate a normal female fly to a male fly that has a genetic defect and see how many of their offspring will have the same defect. A more complicated experiment is to bombard normal flies with X-rays to create new defects (mutations) that will be inherited in accordance with rigid genetics laws. Ever since this last method was discovered by H. J. Muller (the American Nobel Prize-winning geneticist) in 1927, it has been used extensively, producing population of blind, wingless or distorted flies. So geneticists were naturally disturbed when the wartime atomic bombs that exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki irradiated large numbers of Japanese as if they were fruit flies in Muller's laboratory. They knew only too well that some of the victims who survived and could reproduce would pass on genetic damage to their children a and grandchildren, perhaps for a million years. When nuclear bomb tests began to fill the earth's whole atmosphere ------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr. Leonard a New York science editor has written many articles on radiation. [image] Wood painting by Marisol Collection Mr. and Mrs. C. Mckenzie Lewis Jr. Courtesy Leo Castelli. "Family Group" [Four Images] Electron microscope views of tobacco mosaic, cowpox, T-4 bacteriophage and polio viruses. From Tiny Specks of Matter, Disease VIRUS HUNTER. By Greer Williams. Illustrated. 503 pp. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. $5.95. By LEONARD ENGEL BACK in 1890-a long time ago in the world if science-a Dutch botanist named Martinus Willen Beijerinck showed that tobacco plant, is caused by an agent so small it passes through a filter impermeable to bacteria. This was the first demonstration that the tiny speck of matter called viruses can induce disease. Today we know that viruses are responsible for a long list of human ailments, ranging from the merely unpleasant like the common cold to the disastrous like rabies and paralytic polio, and including even (as some authorities are convinced) some forms of cancer. Virology has become one of the major medical sciences. In "Virus Hunters," Greer Williams, a veteran popular magazine writer on medicine and former public relations director for the American College of Surgeons tells the story of virus research and the men and women who carry it on. The books begins with Edward Jenner, who devised the first antiviral vaccine-the cowpox vaccine we still use for immunization against smallpox- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Mr. Engel's latest book, "The Operation," reviews medical advances of the last fifty years. a century before anyone knew that viruses existed. The latest research on the nature of viruses and the renature of viruses and the remarkable discovery a few years ago that viruses and genes (the units of heredity in men and bacteria alike) are fashioned from much the same chemical substances wind the book up. In between, Mr. Williams covers, among numerous virus hunters, Wendell Stanley (who won the Nobel Prize for proving that tobacco mosaic virus is, literally, a living molecule); John Enders (the banker's son who received the Nobel award for growing polio virus in the test tube); Jonas Salk of the polio vaccines; Max Theiler, creator of yellow-fever vaccine; and Robert J. Huebner, chief discoverer of the adenoviruses, sub-microscopic pests responsible for many cases of "grippe." Thirty-five years ago, Paul de Kruif helped awaked public interest in medical research with "The Microbe Hunters," a highly dramatized account of the lives and work of the great pioneers of bacteriology. Mr. Williams' book shows how far both medical research and science writing have come since then. Williams had a much more difficult job; he had to cover the work of several score researchers for every one who figures in the de Kruif book. "Virus Hunters" is also a much more sophisticated volume, breezy in the tone rather than highly charged, and assuming considerably more elementary knowledge of microbes and disease on the part of the reader than would have been proper for the de Kruif book. There are places, however, where Mr. Williams once-over-lightly touch is too light. It is doubtful that many readers will carry away from "Virus Hunters" a really clear picture of the present state of knowledge of viruses and their basic characteristics. Most of the necessary information is here. But it is so interspersed with details of the personal lives and characteristics of the virus researchers that the picture is not easy to put together. The defect of Mr. Williams' procedure of interweaving information and personalia is most evident in the final section, dealing with the recent research on the possible role of viruses in cancer and other exciting new discoveries on the mechanisms by which viruses multiply and cause disease. This is complex stuff, but there are few areas of biological or medical research of greater importance. It should have had better organized treatment, with more "hard" science in it. Such shortcoming aside, "Virus Hunters" can be counted a pleasant way to make the acquaintance of one of the key branches of modern medical research and of the men who made it that. ___ All That Makes Us What We Are HUMAN HEREDITY. By Ashley Montagu. Illustrated. 397 pp. New York: The World Publishing Company. $5. By L.C. DUNN Reports on political history tend in these days especially, to produce discouragement and pessimism. We console ourselves with the thought that the matters dealt with are transient ones and will be in a different state tomorrow. Reports on the progress of science, on the other hand, have a different character and effect. Changes in the natural sciences may be slow, but they occur prevailingly in one direction, that of increasingly accumulation of knowledge. That fact alone should entitle books about science to a greater share of public attention. They might even be said to form the basis on which a literature of hope can be build. "There is learning somewhere" said Emerson in his journal., "and somebody will have it, and who has it will have the power and will rule you: knowledge is power." Of all forms of knowledge, none is more useful than that which helps us to understand ourselves. It is the goal of this book to contribute to that end. In it, the erudite student of man, anthropologist Ashley Montague, reviews the literature of human heredity, which has expanded remarkably in the last few years. The review is comprehensive and well-documented. While the style generally is scientific exposition, the author has not neglected a primary duty of the journalist, to enlist and hold the interest of the reader. He does this by a wise choice of individual "human interest" cases for emphasis, and by no suppressing, as many scientists do, his own sympathies. (clearly on the "liberal" side) or prejudices (he's on the nurture side of the nurture-nurture controversy even when it's a false dichotomy. (it nearly always is). In fact, his major motivation seems to be to try to restore the balance as between heredity and environment as forces influencing the biological nature of [[mankind?]]. Advancing knowledge [[?]] genes and chromosomes tends [[?]] it is true, to shift the emphasis toward that system which is more precisely known. But sometimes, in trying to restore (Continued on Page 31) _____ Mr. Dunn, Professor of Zoology at Columbia University, wrote "Heredity and Evolution in Human Populations." _____ Remember the Neediest THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
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