Content area
Full text
Landmark Papers in Clinical Chemistry. Richard M. Rocco, ed. Amsterdam: Elsevier B.V., 2006, 522 pp., $86.95, hardcover. ISBN 0-444-51950-5.
This book is a compilation of 39 papers that appeared in the scientific literature from 1919 to 1992. Each paper is preceded by a commentary in which the editor provides brief descriptions of the tests, the impetus for their development, and sometimes, anecdotes about the scientists. The book is divided into 7 sections: Immunoassay Technology, Therapeutic Drug Monitoring, Enzymology, Specific Analytes, Instrumentation and Techniques, Chemometrics, and Molecular Diagnostics.
Many of the papers selected are, indeed, landmarks in clinical chemistry. They represent a historical journey through the evolution of the chemistry laboratory. In less than 90 years, the chemistry laboratory moved from the Duboscq colorimeter (circa 1919) to the most advanced of automated analytical instruments, virtually eliminating all manual procedures while simultaneously expanding the number of diagnostic tests. To those of us who were "present at the creation" of clinical chemistry (the arrival of this reviewer in the US in 1957 coincided with the introduction of the Technicon AutoAnalyzer, the first instrument for automated analysis in clinical chemistry, which may be...