Perspectives in Biology and Medicine

one finds it to be nothing more than muscle" (p. 90). The authors tell the reader of the doctors' outside interests; that they have been poets, writers, travelers, and lovers of wine. And they relate that even Charles Lindbergh of aviation fame was a forerunner in the development of the cardiopulmonary bypass pump. In addition, the authors make it clear that they have a stake in this history, and the reader gains a sense of their feelings about the accomplishments they describe. In many ways, little has changed in medicine over the years: hospitals are still immersed in politics and funding, and fights continue to break out among competing colleagues. The authors acknowledge the accomplishments of the past in a way that connects them to the practices and research of the present. They comment thus on the changes: "Then we paid a price for our ignorance by inability to cure many diseases; today, we pay a price for the emphasis on science and technology, because we are less aware of the patient as a distinct personality, his social and economic concerns, and his personal response to disease" (p. 145). Cardiology: The Evolution ofthe Science and the Art tackles its subject in a comprehensive way that gives much needed recognition to everyone involved in cardiological advancements. Stahelin, discussing the discovery of cyclosporin, puts it very well: "pharmaceutical research quite often proceeds in a path with many windings; and they illustrate how many people, groups of people, strokes of luck, serendipity, preceding events, etc., contribute to research endeavors of this kind and that they are those factors which make the difference between the usual, frequent failures and the rare success" (p. 122). This book documents the great development of cardiology technologically while it leaves the reader with the notion that the people behind the great developments are artists who are interwoven into a fabric of philosophies, errors, ideas, and successes. Bing's words sum up the philosophy of the work: "In medicine, as in science, there is no peak of final accomplishment. If society continues to respect and promote scientific projects, our present advances will seem but the forerunners of greater accomplishments" (p. 156). Julie Joftus Steven Feinstein Section of Cardiology, M-C 787 Department of Medicine University ofIllinois at Chicago 840 S. Wood Street Chicago, Illinois 60612-7323 The Interval-Force Relationship of the Heart: Bowditch Revisited. Edited by Mark I. M. Noble and W. A. Seed. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992, Pp. 368. This book is a collection of solicited chapters which presents in one volume a thorough review of the various manifestations and effects of both the steadystate beat interval and the preceding beat interval on cardiac contractility. 148 Book Reviews The volume begins with a translation of Bowditch's 1871 paper "Über die Eigentümlichkeiten der Reizbarkeit welche die Muskelfasern des Herzens zeigen" (On the peculiarities of excitability which the fibres of cardiac muscle show). This translation, the accompanying historical note, and the papers by Dr. Allen and Drs. Cooper and Noble, provide an excellent historical perspective on cardiac function in general and the interval-force relationship in particular. In the historical notes following the translation of Bowditch's paper and again in Dr. Seed's chapter, which closes the book, the authors speculate as to why Bowditch's observations, which preceded those of Frank and Starling by decades , received so little attention in relation to the dominance of the FrankStarling relationship in the understanding of the regulation of the heart for much of this century. This discussion and the translation of the Bowditch paper are valuable contributions for those interested in the history of their discipline, whether they be clinicians, muscle physiologists, or molecular biologists. The bulk of the volume, following this historical introduction, is divided into two sections. The first of these, "Cellular Processes Underlying Interval-Force Behaviour and Their Control," contains chapters by Drs. Yue, Boyett et al., Lewartowski, and Langer. These papers provide a good review of what we know about the cellular mechanism(s) underlying interval-force behavior. Not surprisingly, they focus mostly on cellular calcium dynamics and excitation contraction coupling. The chapter by Yue provides compelling evidence for a tight coupling among...