A BOOK that states its objective in the preface, that precisely fulfils it in ninety-six crisply writtln pages, must be warmly commended. The objective, though limited, is worthy-to provide a readable and descriptive account of chromatography, primarily for university students. Unlike the two earlier books on the subject, the first by Zechmeister and Cholnoky (translated by Bacharach and Robinson), the second by Strain, this one makes a deliberate selection of the available material, instead of presenting the lot in bewildering completeness. The result is a reasonably well-balanced account, with the emphasis upon technique and potentialities rather than upon past achievements. The reviewer was pleasantly surprised to find one after another of his pet tricks of technique described, until there was little left to quibble about. The frequent cross-references to other pages will also be very useful to a student using the book as a guide to practical work. Moreover, the author has not been content to select his examples from the older literature; for example, a whole chapter is devoted to the elegant techniques of partition chromatography on damp silica, starch, or strips of filter-paper, developed since 1941 by Martin, Synge, Gordon and Consden.

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.1038/158730a0

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