This is an excellent and informative volume attempting to cover the highlights of the whole field of human genetics. It starts with the early plant hybridisation studies of Mendel and comes up to date with some of the key results of the Human Genome Project. A particularly nice touch is to see a reproduction of the lecture by William Bateson given to the Royal Horticultural Society in 1901 in which he explains in lucid terms the importance of Mendel’s discovery. Thereafter the early workers in the field are described including Francis Galton, Karl Pearson, Archibald Garrod, William Bateson and Walter Weldon. Pearson’s development of Galton’s Laws of Ancestral Development is covered extensively. It appears that the dispute between the Mendelians and Biometricians in 1904 was not as virulent as others have described, but according to Dr. Magnello, Pearson made great efforts to accommodate Mendelism within his biometric studies.

The work of Garrod and his ‘inborn errors of metabolism’ is given due prominence as a fundamental contribution to the emerging science of genetics; he is so often overlooked by basic geneticists when they come to write the history of their subject.

The book then jumps to events in the 1950s with attempts to map the position of the major genes by linkage analysis; but more details could have been included on the studies recognizing the importance of DNA as the carrier of genetic information. There is a very interesting account by Ferguson-Smith (Cambridge University) on the development of chromosomal genetics and Lucio Luzzatto (Genova University) describes how the environment ( in the shape of mosquitoes bearing the malarial parasite) has affected the composition of the human genome in the form of globin and glucose 6 phosphate dehydrogenase mutants.

Professor Timothy Cox (Cambridge University) gives an eloquent and thorough account of how genetic advances have influenced the practice of clinical medicine dealing with a variety of diseases, including haemochromatosis with which he has made a special study. John Bell (Oxford University) follows with a chapter on how the more recent developments in genetics might allow us to work out the inheritance of complex, multifactorial disease such as diabetes m.; and Alfred Knudson (Philadelphia, USA) considers some of the germ-line and somatic mutations that can predispose to the cancers.

Finally Professor Sir David Weatherall (Oxford University) give his predictions on how the subject is likely to develop in the 21^st. century and reckons that the next few decades are likely to be among the most exiting in biology so far. This excitement is certainly conveyed by all the contributors to this excellent volume which fills a valuable role in giving a broad outline of the history of the subject by many of the people who have made it. The volume will appeal to researchers in medical genetics and to the historians of science and medicine. It would also provide a basic core of reading material for students taking an honours degree in genetics or medical genetics.

David Galton