Methods in Drug Evaluation. by P. Mantegazza; F. PiccininiReview by: D. S. RobsonBiometrics, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Jun., 1967), p. 373Published by: International Biometric SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2528175 .

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BOOK REVIEWS 373

chosen and the meaning attached to them. The subjective theory is also put aside at least for the time being, because it is not clear whether it contributes to an under- standing of that preeminent physical property, chance, or to inferences about it.

All in all, this is an impressive book written in as clear and delightful a prose style as the subject can bear, and readily accessible to the intelligence of the average scientist whose knowledge of statistics is limited. Indeed, the author exhibits a literary skill and elegance combined with a piquancy that will be the envy of statisticians writing in this area and his work deserves a careful scrutiny by all who have even the slightest interest in the foundations of our subject.

MANTEGAZZA, P. and PICCININI, F. (Eds.) Methods in Drug Evaluation.

118 Proceedings of the International Symposium held in Milano, September 20-23, 1965. North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam. xii + 580 pp. $16.80, guilders 60.-.

D. S. RoBSON, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, U.S.A.

This collection of 44 papers, each a compendium of methods for evaluating the activity of a class of drugs, provides a close and commendably candid view of experimental pharmacology today. The reader will marvel at the ingenuity dis- played in identifying measurable correlates of human reactions in laboratory animals and in vitro, even while being apprised of the limitations and pitfalls of this form of extrapolation. The biometrician, in particular, will appreciate the overriding concern and frequent pre-occupation with the omnipresent biological variability in response to drug treatment.

Only one paper in this volume is frankly statistical in subject matter, this concerned with operating characteristic curves of screening methods, but virtually all of the papers offer the biological statistician valuable insight into techniques for eliciting and measuring response, reducing variability and, in some instances, analyzing bioassay experiments. Each paper is devoted to a specific set of drugs and describes the specific methods which have been used in evaluation, often illus- trated by the author's own data on dosage and response presented in graphical form. The language is technical, being addressed to experimental pharmacologists; how- ever, the author's initroductory remarks usually contain sufficient explanation to overcome the language difficulties of the uninitiated.

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