Practical methods for biological morphometry

This is the first textbook dealing with stereological methods that puts the emphasis on practical versus theoretical stereology, on its use in biology versus in materials sciences and on sampling efficiency versus measuring precision. As such, the book reflects the transition of stereology from the ‘It can be done! ’ phase to the ‘How to do it the best way? ’ phase. Being one of the principal engineers of this transition, the author needs no further presentation neither in stereological nor in biological quarters (nor among readers of this Journal ! ) The book is the first of two volumes, of which the second will deal explicitly with the theoretical foundations of stereology. In round figures, there are 350 pages, only few of which are not written in the lucid and very easily comprehensive Weibel-style. The book contains 175 illustrations, among which, especially the more than 100 drawings, is a rich combination of artistical dexterity and pedagogicai clarity. The list of 300-odd references is too short to be exhaustive (nor is it claimed to be so) but it is also rather too long to be an easily accessible guide for newcomers in the field. A short list with suggestions for further reading might have been useful. The 25-page appendix showing variants of three basic designs of test-grids is rather superfluous considering the large number of examples of the same designs given throughout the text. Addressed to ‘biologists of varied denominations’ who want to ‘do good stereology’ the book provides a wealth of information and discussions of the great number of more or less specific practical problems encountered in biological stereology. T o name a few, the multiple stage sampling imposed on biologists by the hierachical organization of organisms when studied at 100,000-fold varying magnification is very clearly explained and exemplified several times in the text. The multitude of biases involved in, for example, the transmission microscopy of thick sections (overprojection), the use of fixatives and osmotic active solutes (shrinkage! swelling), etc., etc., are frequently mentioned and some of them are discussed to a certain depth, including working corrections if available. Throughout the text there is a cleverly kept balance between always keeping the reader well aware of these biases-albeit, unfortunately, almost always under the name of ‘errors’-without ever allowing the unavoidable ones to be hindrances for obtaining biologically significant structural information. To summarize the treatment of the biological and practical problems : Here speaks a vastly experienced biologist and microscopist, he is not only careful and cautious but also brave and I think he succeeds in actually encouraging his readers into ‘doing good stereology’. The theoretical parts of the book are more uneven. The introduction to geometric probability starts at a very elementary level, explains the essential geometric operations involved and then proceeds in a straightforward manner through the principles of stereology to the desired formulae. The statistical nature of these relationships is thereby clearly revealed without scaring away anybody by the use of n-dimensional space integrals. On the other hand, the almost exhaustive treatment of the (unavoidable) computational nitty-gritty involved in NV estimation does not offer much help to the more practically oriented reader in selecting the method appropriate for his biological problem. SI T and LV estimation in general is derived only for isotropic