Pulmonary Infections and Immunity

edited by H. Chmel, M. Bendinelll and H. Friedman, Plenum Press, 7 994. ~69.OOl$85.00 (xxi + 355 pages) ISBN 0 306 44609 X

This volume is part of a series titled Infectious Agents and Pathogenesis. The aim of the series is to offer the reader a synopsis of current knowl- edge, from various disciplines, on specific infections and/or infectious agents. The philosophy behind the series rests with the contention: ‘mechanisms of disease caused by in- fectious agents demand a breadth of understanding across many special- ised areas’. Although I am in broad agreement with this premise, it begs the question as to what level and in which subjects is this understanding appropriate, and must of course also contend with the inevitable possi- bility that the reader may be totally ignorant of the basics of some ot these disciplines!

The introductory chapter takes on the difficult task of describing host defence systems in the lung from scratch. Given that the reader may have no knowledge of immu- nology, it performs this task rela- tively well. However, the need to cover basics (e.g. a description of the five classes of immunoglobulin)

OPAL Module 3: Immune

edited by H-l? X. Zhang, Elsevier $353.00 (Teacher 0 444 81732 8

Cells

Hartung and Science, 1994.

version) 1SBN

We are frequently bombarded by the many possibilities for retrieving information provided by technol- ogies involving multimedia, the global Internet and the information superhighway. Consequently, many teachers are currently evaluating the realities of the promised applications in higher education, including the benefits of electronic products, the Internet, the World Wide Web, and of producing our own hypertext documents, to determine how they may improve the way we teach our subjects. I am already convinced that

forces the omission of recent ma- terial that may be more pertinent. It is notable that, of 72 references quoted, only five are post-1990. Furthermore, the decision to include a cross-section of a cilium as the first figure, and then show Idbelling of T cells that express e+ and y6 T-cell receptors (not mentioned in the text) JS the fourth and last figure, demonstrates the problem faced by the authors.

The subsequent chapters address specific infections, and include sections on microbiology, immu- nology, epidemiology, clinical man- festations, general pathology and, in some cases, diagnosis and treat- ment. The success of this approach is variable, as no common format is achieved. Accepting the constraints of space, this broad-brush approach might have worked if a rigid for- mula for presentation had been adopted; however, this is not the case. Any reader having absorbed the sections on immune defence in the chapters on pneumococcal pneu- monia and haemolytic streptococcal pneumonia may move on in search of more! However, some chapters completely fail to address the issue of host immune defence. On the other hand, the chapter on tubercu- losis devotes almost its entiretv to this topic, thus neglecting aspects from other specialities.

the appropriate use of multimedia offers a major step forward in the presentation of some highly com- plex ideas to students. However, this must be weighed against the convenience of paper products, the economic considerations of pur- chasing hardware and software, and the technical limitations that place constraints on the number of available workstations, the quality of the software and the resolution of the images they display. Thus, within this context, I was extremely inter- ested to review the current OPAL, Module 3, titled immune Cells.

The module is relatively straight- forward to set up and use, and the information is broken down into a reasonably logical set of linked units. These units provide a basic overview of the immune system, the cells and how they interact, as well

Overall, I feel that the diversity of presentation makes this a difficult book to use for reference and, regret- tably, it is not up to date enough to guide the reader in current thinking. Furthermore, I was surprised to find no section on aspergillosis, and one might have expected pneumo- cystis would have got a mention, the former being a relatively com- mon infestation of the lung and the latter being more uniquely associ- ated with immunodeficiencies.

Given the comments above, it is difficult to decide who might ben- efit from this book. The clinical as- pects of some of the chapters may well enlighten scientists in these fields, and some of the basic science, described both in terms of host de- fence and microbiology, may be of value to clinicians with particular interest in these areas. However, the inherent difficulty in identifying and isolating those sections relevant to any specific individual tend to reduce the impact of this book significantly.

Leonard W. Poulter

Academic Dept of Clinical Immunology,

Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine,

University of London, Pond Street, London,

UK NW3 2QG.

as the nature of the humoral and cellular effector systems. The infor- mation is presented as a series of pictorial screens, displaying sche- matic diagrams of cells, cell-surface molecules, cytokines, receptors and so on. These are linked to other win- dows, which either display textual information concerning aspects of the diagrams or show more-detailed views of the system. Items within the graphical and textual windows have hypertext links to other rel- evant sections of the module. If available, some of these links even crossreference other modules in the OPAL series. Tools exist to ‘remem- ber’ the course that you followed, allowing you to navigate back- wards and forwards through the documents, and to flag particular points in the sequence. The teach- ing version also allows the user to

customize a sequence of screens to run as a slide show and to modify self-evaluation tests for students by adding new questions and answers.

One of the most powerful aspects of these modules is their ability to run a cartoon animation sequence demonstrating aspects of cell func- tion. For example, antigen-presenting cells are shown to engulf antigen and to process it to peptides for presen- tation in the context of major histo- compatibility complex to a T cell. In a linked animation, accessory mol- ecules are shown to interact, cyto- kines are secreted and bound by the receptors, and the T cell becomes activated. The animated sequences can be halted, stepped backwards for a repeat, and information on each of the cells, the molecules and cytokines can be obtained. This is an excellent way to teach the prin- ciples of biology. However, it would be wrong to imply that the infor- mation provided in the modules at

The Immune Self: Theory or Metaphor?

by Alfred 1. Tauber, Cambridge University Press, 1994. U7.SOl$S9.95 (x + 354 pages) ISBN 0 52146188 X

This is a wonderful book. Its goal is ‘to offer the first extended philo- sophical critique of immunology, in which the function of the term self. ..is analyzed’. This critique is offered in two parts. First, Tauber traces the origins of the concept of self in immunology, from the pioneering phagocyte studies of Elie Metchnikoff, through the first for- mal declaration of the immune self by Macfarlane Burnet, and culmi- nating with a presentation of Niels Jerne’s network theory and the new cognitive paradigms of Irun Cohen and the ‘Paris School’ of Antonio Coutinho and colleagues. In pro- viding this chronology, Tauber also details those periods in which Metchnikoff’s agenda was eclipsed by a reductionist fixation on the speci- ficity of immune responses. As far as I can tell, this book provides the first published history of the concept of ‘self’ in immunology, and Tauber’s scholarship, particularly with regard to Metchnikoff, is unparalleled.

present is comprehensive. Much of the information would he suitable for supplementing the teaching of our 2nd- and .3rd-year immunology undergraduates, but only if it is combined with conventional tewt- books, lectures and research articles.

My major reservations concern- ing this module relate, first, to whether the current price represents value for money (i.e. can educational establishments meet the multi-user costs) and, second, whether the de- cision to produce the graphics to only VGA resolution is desirable considering that SVGA is rapidly becoming a minimum accepted stan- dard for many users. On the other hand, it is likely that future releases of the software could be steadily improved with regard to the content and presentation of information, and then supplied to registered users for modest upgrade charges, in a way that cannot happen for a text- book. At present, there are not very

Second, the book details the con- cept of self in philosophy and moves from Descartes through Nietzsche. As a bridge between the two parts of this book, Tauber first explicates two concepts of the self that may be regarded as opposite poles in a con- tinuum of meaning: (1) the ‘punctual self’, which is a ‘bounded, autono- mous’ and ‘stable’ entity; and (2) the ‘elusive self’, which is of ‘indetermi- nate location and undefinable co- ordinates’. Locke’s ‘self’ lies on the ‘punctual’ side of the continuum whereas, for Rousseau and Nietzsche, the self is more elusive. Tauber notes the striking similarities in Metch- nikoff’s immunology and Nietzsche’s biologicism, both of which, 1 be- lieve, were profoundly affected by Darwin’s theory of evolution.

I suspect that Tauber would pre- fer to align himself with the network theorists, who believe in an elusive self and stand in opposition to genetic reductionists such as James Watson, who believes that ‘self identity is hard-wired, directly en- coded in... (MHC) genes that differ in their primary sequence from one individual to another’. Herein lies a small problem with The Immune Self - it is hard to pick sides when both are wrong. That the self is not

book reviews many products of this type avail- able, but I am aware that there are a large number of projects in pro- gress and I am sure that the com- petition when it arrives will help raise the standards of the individual packages of this type. There is also a considerable amount of very good information of a similar type provided with ‘free’ access on the World Wide Web for those who have the ability, the patience and the fortune to $urf the right seas. Nevertheless, I would recommend you to take a look at this package, and I remain optimistic about the future promise of information technology in teaching.

Mike Clark

L)irJls2on of Immunology, Dept of Pathology,

Cambridge University, Tennis Court Road,

CambrIdge, liK CB2 1 QE

germline encoded should be obvious to all immunologists; however, as Mel Cohn has pointed out, a self- regulating immune network is also impossible because there is no way to explain how the encounter of an antibody with its antigen is uniquely inductive whereas encounter with its anti-idiotype is uniquely suppres- sive. Indeed, a more extensive dis- cussion of Cohn’s unique contri- butions to theories of self/nonself- discrimination, particularly his two- signal model of lymphocyte acti- vation, would have enhanced the book immeasurably.

When Tauber defended biologi- cal holism, I was overjoyed; when he praised the network mystics, I was profoundly disappointed. But I was never bored, and that is the sign of a good book. The Immune Self shows that the science of im- munology has reached a level of ma- turity where it can now contribute to the discussion of who we are. In writing it, Alfred Tauber has in turn made a valuable contribution to immunology.

Ephraim Fuchs

]ohns Hopkins Oncology Center, Baltimore, MD 2 1287, USA.