Diese Einfuhrung in das Gebiet der Gifttiere und ihrer Verbreitung beschreibt die chemische Struktur und pharmakologische Wirkung der Tiergifte und enthalt Ratschlage zur Verhutung von Gifttierunfallen sowie Hinweise auf erste Hilfe und arztliche Gegenmassnahmen. Es ist fur Biologen, Mediziner und Chemiker geschrieben, doch kann durchaus jeder Tourist und Naturliebhaber Nutzen daraus ziehen. Das Buch, das den neuesten wissenschaftlichen Stand hervorragend reprasentiert, kann dem im Untertitel genannten Interessentenkreis und daruber hinaus allen naturwissenschaftlich Interessierten vorbehaltlos als Einfuhrung in das Gebiet vollauf dienen. (Die Pharmazie)

Venomous Animals have been a threat to man at all times, in the warm and wilder regions more than in the temperate areas. People in especially dangerous regions know about these risks and live accordingly. However, with modern tourism and nearly unlimited travel oppor tunities more and more people without experience and knowledge about venomous animals come into contact with them; this book is intended to provide these people with an introduction to the subject. Venomous animals, their habits, their whole ecology and their venoms have been the object or research since the beginning of this century; truly intensive work, how ever, first started about thirty years ago. Medical treat ment therefore has been changed by new insights in the mechanism of action and the constituents of the various venoms. In this regard this book is also directed to physi cians, biologists and chemists to give them an introduc tion in this important and interesting field. New aspects of treatment of envenomations are reported. This book cannot replace bigger textbooks and monographs - they are cited in the references - but it gives an overview and an entry into this field. The original German edition was written at the request of colleagues and students of medicine, biology and chemistry as well as frequent travellers in tropical countries. It was sold out within eight months, thus showing that it really filled a gap."

Not so long ago Roentgen-ray crystallography was a rather esoteric science reserved for a fairly small group of specialists. Perusal of the recent literature shows that the number of publications per year con- cerned with crystal structure analysis by x-ray diffraction has increased by a factor of ten in the last ten years. This great increase can be at- tributed to a number of factors. An analysis of a molecule which may contain eighty atoms, excluding hydrogen atoms, involves the collection of about 6000 independent reflections. Before the advent of the automatic diffractometer, an instrument which records intensity data while the investigator is free to be occupied otherwise, the estimation of the intensities of the reflections by eye or by photometer was a formidable task. Even if such a large number of data were collected, processing these data was an impossible task until the development of high-speed computers. A third factor was the advancement made in the theory of structure analysis such as the use of isomorphous replacement, anomalous dispersion and direct methods for phase determination. As a result, at the present time it is possible to determine the structure of virtually every material which forms good single crystals, regardless of the number of atoms or whether or not heavy atoms are present.