edited by John Cairns, Gunther S. Stent, and James D. Watso

Fling, Gerald

Name not available

Phage and the Origins of 
Molecular Biology 
edited by John Cairns, 
Gunther S. Stent, and James D. Watson 
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory o f  
Quantitative Biology $1 2.50 
Reviewed b y  Gerald Fling, division o f  
biology. 
A number of the men associated with 
tin; n'be (tinil f'ill) of bacterial genet- 
ics have put together these acco1111ts 
uf tllt1ii e m e n c e s .  The book is dei3i- 
cated to Max Delbriick, Caltech profes- 
sor of biology, who, by all accounts, 
was the central figure in the unfolding 
drama and in whose laboratories at Cal- 
tech new ideas were hatched and new 
workers trained. Their work ultimate- 
ly resulted in an explosion of knowl- 
edge and a new field. 
The contributors write about how 
they got new ideas and tested them. 
They tell of the interplay between col- 
leagues and of their own experimental 
losses and gains. Each man is revealed 
as a central figure in the chase, com- 
peting with himself and his colleagues 
and with nature and the unknown. 
Each suffers unexpected and ignomin- 
ious pratfalls, occasionally overtaking 
the quarry and experiencing deep satis- 
faction, only to find that the quarry is 
off again in a new direction, presenting 
new roads and hazards to be overcome. 
The personal glimpses of the scien- 
tists at work in Cold Spring Harbor and 
Pasadena are many. G. W. Beadle, 
whose recollections are limited to the 
rise of biochemical genetics, tells how, 
in 1930, he and Sterling Emerson 
talked about buying a balance, costing 
about $10, but were certain that Thom- 
as Hunt Morgan, then chairman of the 
biology division, would not approve 
such an expenditure. 
In 1954 Andre Lwoff found that 
"the California Institute of Technology, 
poor as many American institutions of- 
ten are, could not afford to buy a micro- 
forge" and was "kindly persuaded" by 
Beadle, then chairman of the division 
of biology, that he and Renato Dulbec- 
co should build themselves one, which 
they did. Lwoff goes on with a charm- 
ing account of his work on the induc- 
tion of bacteriophage. 
Dulbecco describes the role of di- 
chondra grass in his development of the 
tissue culture plaque assay for cell-kill- 
ing animal viruses-and refers envious- 
ly to Jean Weigle's short-cut method 
for incubating cultures. Weigle had a 
habit of stuffing a few petri dishes in- 
side his shirt as he set off for a desert 
6 
camping trip, transferring them to his 
sleeping bag at night, and reading the 
results the next morning. 
R. S. Edgar discloses that the phage 
mutant amber was named for Harris 
Bernstein's mother-amber being the 
English equivalent of the German Bern- 
stein. Niels K. Jerne tells why he was 
not attracted to Pasadena, the desert, or 
rock climbing and recalls James Wat- 
son's "characteristic way of producing a 
succinct, unambiguous answer to any 
queiitiou. 'It stinks'." In a hip by auto 
across the country with Werner Reich- 
ardt, Jeuie obheived that the "bedbug 
t lnt  .-,LultI in ~ I K  U.S. lay at h i  \ dollar 3 
for a double room." 
For most of these men Max Del- 
briick was "conscience, goad and sage." 
As sage, Delbriick urged incorpora- 
tion in experiments of what he called 
"the principle of limited sloppiness." 
As goad, he confined Seymour Benzer, 
Matt Meselson, and others to rooms in 
the Kerckhoff Marine Laboratory until 
they had written the papers he felt they 
should write. The typing was contrib- 
uted by Mrs. Delbruck. He once held 
this reviewer incommunicado in a 10- 
cal printing house until the necessary 
editorial services were performed and 
the book, Viruses 1950, was put to 
bed. His critical insights are vividly ex- 
pressed. After reading a draft of Ben- 
zer's paper on fine structure he said the 
author had "delusions of grandeur," 
and advised Benzer to stop writing pa- 
pers, or at least to underline what was 
important. He called James Watson's 
literary style "turgid" and rewrote his 
paper before submitting it to the Na- 
tional Academy. "I don't believe a word 
of it," he said of George Steisinger's re- 
sults concerning genetic circularity in 
the T4 phage. 
The bacteriophage group has grown 
from eight in 1947 to hundreds today. 
Delbriick predicted to Weigle that his 
friends, to honor his 60th birthday, 
Max Delbriick 
would produce a Festsclirift of papels 
that had been rejected L> rt t-I) joimicil. 
Instead they have produced this booL 
of very readable accounts oi their liis- 
toric discoveries, enlivened by a collee- 
tion of stories about the founding of the 
phage group, its interactioiiii. folklore,, 
and operating methods. The 4~coi111t.a 
are expertly done, often with wry liu- 
mor, which the general reader at, w e l l  
as the specialist in the field may find 
happy reading. 
If Harry Rubin's speculatii~i .i 101 - 
rect-that most of the glories of 11 ictc- 
rial virology lie in the past-at le.ist v v 
L a  t in print a good part of t11t b ILL- 
ground story told by the people uliu 
did the work and achieved the glory. 
Men, Machines, and Modern Times 
by Eking E. Morison 
The M.I.T. Press ........................ $5.95 
Elting Morison, historian, and now 
Sloan Fellows Professor of Manage- 
ment at MIT and chairman of the So- 
cial Studies Curriculum Program of 
Educational Services, Inc., came to 
Caltech in 1950 to give a series of 
Athenaeum lectures. This book is the 
result: One of the lectures, "Gunfire 
at Sea: A Case Study of Innovation," 
not only forms the opening chapter; it 
sets the theme that is developed in all 
the chapters that follow." 
"A Case Study of Innovation" de- 
scribes the disorder created in the 
United States Navy when an officer 
discovered a new way to fire a gun 
at sea. Morison's subject here, and 
throughout this book, is change-the 
nature of technological change, the 
reaction and resistance to it, and how 
to solve the problem of easy and rapid 
transition from the old to the new in a 
world where radical change is the 
steady state. 
"The interesting question," accord- 
ing to Morison, "seems to be whether 
man, having succeeded after all these 
years in bringing so much of the natural 
environment under his control, can now 
manage the imposing system he has 
created for the specific purpose of en- 
abling him to manage his natural en- 
vironment." 
Morison applies himself to this sober 
problem in a series of lively essays, re- 
plete with absorbing anecdotes and 
interesting historical examples. 
*' "A Case Study of Innovation" ( E M ,  
April 1950) became the most popular 
article this magazine has ever run. Re- 
quests for reprints still come in today. 
Engineering and Science 


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