BOOK REVIEWS PRINCIPLES OF EMULSION TECH- NOLOO¾, by Paul Becher. Rein- hold Publishing Corp., New York 22, N.Y. I955. 149 pages, 48/4 ) 7 inches, illustrated and indexed. Price $2.95. This is the fifth in a series of"pilot books," moderately priced, intended to give a bird's-eye view of a new or advanced branch of science or in- dustry. The books are small but complete in essential information, written in as plain a language as possible. The author is associated with a company where emulsions are a daily problem, so he should be able to "speak the language." This he does and well. The writing of such a condensate is a remarkable task in itself, for the science of emulsions is a great one. The cosmetic industry is well cov- ered. Griffin HLB system is given in digest form. It almost seems too scanty. Unfortunately, the later data on HLB would have made the c.hapter more complete because this g•ves a formula for determining HLB of any emulsifier. A few subjects are omitted or in- completely discussed. Thus, spread- ing coefficient and the use of dyes to determine emulsion phase are not mentioned. Interfacial tension, while discussed is not correlated with emulsification as well as it could be. Otherwise, the book is easily read and understood. Everyone inter- ested in emulsions should have it. At the price it is within the reach of all.--M. G. Dv. NAvARRV.. OROASIC CI•.MISWR¾, Volumes III and IV, edited by Henry Gilman. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York 16, N.Y. 1953. Volume 580 pages and xxxviii. Volume IV, 581-I245 and xxxviii, 6 X 9 inches, illustrated and indexed. Price $8.75 each. The purpose of the present vol- umes is to cover branches of chem- istry not included in the earlier volumes. These total twelve new topics. The most useful chapters will be those on applications of infrared and ultraviolet spectra to organic chem- istry, lipids, organic dyes, chemo- therapy, antibiotics, terpenes, starch and oxidation processes. Each topic is discussed by a different author. Six subjects comprise one volume. Miller's chapter in Volume III on spectrometry will be useful to the increasing group of both infrared and ultraviolet spectroscopists in the toilet goods industry. Valu- able tables listing characteristic ab- sorption bands are given. Here one misses references to published work on cosmetic materials. The section on lipids is divided into two portions (I) simple and (2) compound lipids. Polymorphism especially in fatty acids is well done. The statement at the bottom of page 215 that spermaced "contains cetyl esters of lauric and myristic acids" (attributed to a 1929 writing 226

BOOK REVIEWS 227 of Hilditch and Levern) is in error. The literature references (and data) on lanolin are not the latest. One of the more valuable sections is on antibiotics with its extensive listing of unusual an tibiotics isolated in pure form. Volume IV contains six different chapters. Of them chapter 7, on terpenes, and chapter 9, on starch, will be the most interesting to cos- metic chemists. Portions of all the chapters, excepting possibly that on explosives, are valuable. The terpene chapter could be embellished with the more recent work of Haagen-Smith, Stoll and Naves. It is interesting to find the statement that lanosterol and agnos- terol are triterpenes. The work on ambrien could be more expanded. The fact that squalene is the iden- tifying factor in oil of olives and is present in skin sebum is not men- tioned. Hassid's chapter on starch is good but does not contain the latest in- formation on ca•boxymethyl and hydroxyethyl starches, for example. The non-wetting and non-gelling starches are completely by-passed. Chapter 11, by Hanford and Sar- gent, covers "Reppe" chemistry and polyethylenes among other reactions of organic gases under pressure. The work throughout the four volumes of Gilman published to date is of the highest caliber. It suffers from only one fault that this re- viewer can see, and that is, the au- thors do not cover their subject up to the latest date. The older work is well screened. Occasionally, as in Hassid's chapter, newer phases of a development are completely by- passed while the academic aspects are well and thoroughly done. Regardless, Gilman and his con- tributors are continuing a needed work. It is one we all will want and use in our libraries.--M. G. I)E- •N•TA V'A RR E. SKIS THER^PEVTmS, by M. K. Polano. Elsevier Press, Houston 6, Tex. 1952. 276 pages, 6 X 9 inches, indexed. Price $6.50. The author is head of the Derma- tological Department of the Munici- pal Hospital at The Hague. Basi- cally, the book is supposed to be a system used to facilitate the pre- scribing of dermatological therapy. The author further claims to offer the right ointment for the correct treatment of each skin disease. The following statement on page 11, is hard to accept, "The dispens- ing of the ointments cannot wholly be entrusted to the chemist" (phar- macist in U.S.A.) this reviewer finds that this responsibility cannot be entrusted completely to the average dermatologist because of his lack of knowledge of bases and of incompatibilities. So much so that it becomes easy and necessary for the dermatologist to prescribe com- pounded specialty medication. The presentation is not uniform. In some cases abbreviations are used. In others the same words are spelled out. The mixture of Latin and English is really confusing. There is an error in the statement that aureomycin "is a mixture of several antibiotic substances." On the same page (117) "systematically" is used in place of systemically. On page 110 the amount of methyl paraben as preservative is glven as 0.5 per cent which is far too much since either 0.1 to 0.15 per cent is generally believed to be sufficient. On page 73 the author mentions that methyl parabenum is a mixture of methyl and propyl p-hydroxy- benzoates, which it is not. In some places he calls it methylbeni other times it is methyl paraben. Colclay is given for volclay on page 70, line 9. In addition there is a question of the use of 4 per cent