Book Review WOOL SCIENCE: THE CHEMICAL REACTIVITY OF THE WOOL FIBRE, by John A. Maclaren and Brian Milligan Science Press, Marrickville, NSW, Australia, 1981. 328 pages (illustrated, softbound). Price $35 (Australian). Sheep's wool is of great interest to the cosmetic scientist. Firstly, wool grease-- the sheep's sebum--is the source of lano- lin, which, in its native form as well as derivatized, continues to be an important cosmetic raw material. Secondly, because' textile finishing started to be converted from an art to a scientifically-based tech- nology in the '20's--about 25 years before the same process occurred in cosmetics m the early cosmetic scientist had only liter- ature on wool to turn to when wanting to know something about human hair. Stud- ies of the wool fiber continue to be of interest and of relevance, though today knowledge flows in both directions. The book under review is an excellent treatise on its topic--which is not prop- erly described by its title. Surely, '•wool science" includes the ontogeny of the fiber, its mechanical, thermal, optical and electrical properties, its surface structure, its behavior in both dry and wet process- ing, as well as the composition and prop- erties of wool grease and suint. Such fields are only touched on insofar as they relate to what is in fact the book's scope, which is perfectly described by the subti- tie, The Chemical Reactivity of the •/ool Fibre. Following an introductory chapter which discusses the structure and compo- sition of wool (placing large emphasis on the various protein components obtained by different degradation and fractiona- tion methods), 15 chapters are devoted to the reactions of wool with various classes of reagents. The two concluding chapters deal with analytical techniques and the effect of chemical modification on the wool properties. The text is a very good, up-to-date, critical overview of the state of science in the field of wool reactivity and chemical modification. It is less useful as a guide to industrial practice: although practical applications of various reactions are occa- sionally mentioned, it is not always clear to what extent specific processes have been, or are, industrially exploited. The layout is attractive, though some- what wasteful, a wide margin being used for literature references and occasional illustrations. The photographs inter- spersed in the text include, as a nice human touch, informal portraits of a few of the great names in wool chemistry (Lennox, Speakman, Zahn) as well as a picture of the CSIRO Division of Protein Chemistry in Melbourne, the working home of the authors. They also include pictures of various activities in sheep rais- 325

326 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS ing, wool processing, and finishing, possi- bly as a reminder to the laboratory scien- tist that his work may have practical application. This book is an excellent introduction for an organic chemist entering the field of wool or hair chemistry, and a valuable refresher and reference source for those already working in it.--JOHN MEN- KART--Clairol Incorporated. ERRATUM Isolation of melanin pigments from human hair j. c. ARNAUD and P. BOR•, L'Oreal Research Laboratories, Societe L'Oreal, 1 Avenue de Saint Germain, Boite Postale no. 22, 93601 Aulnay-sous-bois, France. J. Soc. Cosmet. Chem., 32, 137-152 (May/June 1981) 1. P. 137, Synopsis, line 4: Replace the word "PROTOLYTIC" with "PROTEOLYT- IC." 2. P. 139, line 12: Following the sentence ending" .. the hydrolysis period." insert "An internal tube rack was connected to the external electric motor and the sealed tubes rotated at 36 rpm." 3. P. 143, Table VI: The amino acid values given in the table should be increased by a factor of ten, thus, the value for Aspartic Acid should read 110mM instead of 11 Threonine should read 81 instead of 8.1 etc. 4. P. 144, line 14: Replace the phrase "At E/S • 1.5,.. "by "At the maximum of the digestion curve,..."