This book records a symposium on the problems of measuring lowlevel gamma isotopes. It will interest primarily those possessing or about to possess total-body gamma counters. That total-body counting has a great future is attested to by the presence of 129 expert contributors with 13 well-known chairmen.
The organization of the book is unusual with 11 forewords, one introduction, and five prefaces that cover 41 pages. The remaining 585 pages contain 43 separate articles with 12 discussions covering instrumentation, techniques, and calibration, together with 100 pages on body potassium, 90 pages on cobalt metabolism, and miscellaneous subjects such as iron metabolism and fission products. We can sympathize with the editors, trying to edit the tape of such lengthy proceedings, but we cannot understand the compulsion to print every last work uttered. If superfluous material were deleted, the book would be much better, and somewhat shorter.
Many interesting points on the