Blood-clotting and Allied Problems

The prevalent assertion that scientific progress is encumbered by the problem of communication gains special validity when directed to the medical sciences. So profuse is the number of publications appearing that keeping abreast of one's specialty is difficult, reading the literature on other subjects a near impossibility. Yet most authorities would agree with Fremont-Smith that "nature is of one piece" and the "advances in one field are frequently dependent on knowledge derived from quite another." These statements are pertinent to the study of blood clotting. The integrative efforts of the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation are reflected in these transactions: chemists, physiologists, pathologists, internists, and a surgeon contribute to various tangents of the problem of blood clotting. Experimental and therapeutic aspects of some of the newer anticoagulants are described; the use of zeta-potential measurements for studying some phases of blood coagulation and several papers on the "so-called prothrombin tests" appear. The informal discussions which followed the presentation of several of these papers at the meeting are included. These discussions emphatically reveal the existing problems, but the very nature of this verbatim reporting makes it necessary for the reader to wade through cumbersome verbiage to find the informative and critical comments. Like its predecessors this volume should be a necessary acquisition for all medical libraries and required reading for all "clotters." Those only casually interested in blood clotting will gain greater insight into the breadth and complexity of the problem and perhaps become wary of specious conclusions concerning the clotting mechanism. J .P. G.