Albumin is the most abundant serum protein produced by the liver. In clinical practice the serum level of albumin continues to be used as an important marker of the presence, progress or ofthe improvement of many diseases, even though it is the complex end result of synthesis, degradation a. nd distribution between intra- and extravascular space. The clinical history of albumin began as early as in 1837, when Ancell first recognized "albumen" and noted that this protein is needed for trans port functions, for maintaining fluidity of the vascular system and for the prevention of edema. However, the important physiological properties of serum proteins and their role in the regulation ofthe oncotic pressure were demonstrated later by the physiologist E. H. Starling in 1895. In 1917 the clinician A. A. Epstein first described the edema in patients with the nephro tic syndrome as being a result of a very low level of serum albumin. Al though the determination of serum albumin concentration became more popular after Howe in 1921 introduced the technique of separation of serum globulins from albumin by sodium sulfate, the first preparations of human serum albumin were made available for clinical use in only 1941 by the development of plasma fractionation by Cohn and his coworkers at Harvard Medical School."

For at least three centuries, Holland has been at the centre of research on intestinal malabsorption. In the 17th and 18th centuries, early descriptions of coeliac disease and tropical sprue were published by physicians trained in Holland, and it was in 1950 that Dicke published his painstaking and vital observations that coeliac disease in children was caused by the inges tion of wheat flour. Subsequent careful work with van de Kamer and Weijers showed that the harmful agent was gluten. Since these discoveries were made, research in intestinal malabsorption, particularly in the adult, has continued in several centres in Holland. At Nijmegen, for example, dr. Cluysenaer, dr. van Tongeren and their as sociates have been involved in long-term studies of patients with intestinal disease for the past fifteen years. In this book they describe their experience of the investigation and treatment of fifty patients with the adult form of coeliac disease. Their monograph gives an account of the history, definition and incidence of the disorder, and then goes on to undertake a critical review of the pathogenesis of the coeliac lesion. Before embarking on the different patterns of malabsorption seen in adult coeliac disease, the authors describe the normal small intestine, its morphology and function."