Arrpak Fi whey!

572

 

Table 1b Concentration of 137Cs in Females. Mean Values for

Quarter-Year Periods (with s.e).

 

Year No. Total nCi pCi/kg body wt. pCi/g potassium
1967 (1) 47 4.67+0.33 84.24+6.5 49.24+2.6
Q) 4] 3.99 + 0.28 67.044.4 45.043.3
(3) 67 3.33+0.10 $8.442.1 38.8411
(4 28 3.09 + 0.15 54.94+3.9 36.14+1.8
1968 (1) 53 2.34+0.08 38.44 1.4 25.8+ 1.0
(2) 65 2.09 + 0.08 34.341.2 24.0+0.9
GB) 65 2.1140.07 35.441.0 25.1+0.8
(4) 57 2,23+0.09 35.9+1.4 25.441.0
1969 (1) 31 1.684+0.08 28.9+1.2 18.3+0.8
(2) 24 1.7140.11 30.9+2.8 17.6+1.0
(3) 19 1.68+0.14 33.54+1.6 21.841.7
(4) 29 1.874 0.09 33.641.7 21.941.1
1970 (1) 16 1.79+0.13 30.14+2.0 20.3411
(2) 10 1.67+0.16 30.441.9 20.3+1.3
(3) 11 1.57+40.13 30.0+ 1.9 18.5+1.0
(4) 20 1.60+0.16 31.9+3.0 19.9+2.0

 

found to be 75 and 39 litres of milk per quarter year. The
half-life value for men agrees very closely with 134 days reported
for the slow turnover compartment’ determined by retention of
a single administration over a period greater than five. hundred
days.- The agreement indicates that the assumptions under-
lying the model are not seriously’in error. Lower calculated
values of intake for the female population could possibly be
due to a combination of two factors; smaller actual dietary
intakes, and a lJarger fraction being rapidly excreted.

It is probably that the former factor is the more important.
There are no published data on the relative caesium intakes of
men and women, but Harries er al.® have reviewed work on
energy intake and expenditure. Comparing results for groups
of men and women matched according to age and occupation,
they show that women have a consistently lower mean calorific
intake than men. Therefore, assuming that women have a diet
similar in composition to that of men, it is likely that they will
also have a lower dietary intake of 137Cs.

We thank Miss D. W. Krupowicz for carrying out the
measurements of caesium-137 body burden.

D. H. MARSHALL

L. BURKINSHAW
Medical Research Council, Environmental Radiation Unit,
Department of Medical Physics, The General Infirmary,
Leeds LS13EX

Received March 20; revised May 1, 1972.

' Boni, A. L., Health Phys., 12, 501 (1966).

? Gustafson, P. E., and Miller, J. E., Health Phys., 16, 167 (1969).

3 Aarkrog, A., Health Phys.,20, 297 (1971).

* Rundo, J., Brit. J. Radiol., 37, 108 (1964).

5 Richmond, C. R., Furchner, J. E., and Langham, W. H., Health
Phys., 8, 201 (1962).

Agric. Res. Counc. Res. Lab. Ann. Rep. (1960-72).

Burch, P. R. J., Hughes, D., Iinuma, T. A., Overton, T. R., and
Appleby, D. B.,in Whole-Body Counting (IAEA, Vienna, 1962).

Godfrey, B. E., and Vennart, J., Nature, 218, 741 (1968).

Harries, J. M., Hobson, E. A., and Hollingsworth, D. F., Proc.
Nutr, Soc., 21, 157 (1962).

ed

Oo

Avery in Retrospect

Lederberg! and Olby? cite enough references to show that
many biologists quickly recognized the significance of pneumo-
coccal transformation by DNA. The history of such a subject
has great intrinsic interest, and often acts as a cautionary tale
that should suggest that there are oversights and false assump-
tions at the present time. It may therefore be permissible to
add something more to the record.

In the spring of 1936, I worked for a few months with Land-
Steiner in the Rockefeller Institute. Avery often joined us at
Junch-time and on several occasions conversation turned to

NATURE VOL. 240 DECEMBER 29 1972

the possible mechanism of the “Griffith phenomenon’ as
Landsteiner tended to call it. Landsteiner, undogmatically,
tended towards a Darwinian explanation with differential
survival of pre-existing bacterial types to which Avery pointed
out many objections. At the Microbiological Congress in
New York in 1939 I did not see Avery but asked Landsteiner
whether any work was being done on the “Griffith pheno-
menon”. He said he thought not.

As Lederberg points out, the paper by Avery, MacLeod and
McCarty? was discussed both in public and private at the 1946
Cold Spring Harbor Symposium and at a Society for Experi-
mental Biology Symposium also held in the summer of 19464.
It was the first paper cited by Kalckar. Stacey remarked
“There is no doubt that this is an authentic case of a specific
mutation caused by a chemical entity, and its importance cannot
be over-emphasized”. Reference to the work also appeared ina
subsection called ‘‘Mutation theory of etiology of cancer’’ in a
paper by Stowell. Darlington did not mention Avery but
called nucleic acid ‘‘the molecular midwife of all reproductive
particles”. That symposium was also notable because the
chemists at it showed that they had at last realized that the
tetranucleotide hypothesis was baseless and implausible. A
year later, at a symposium in Stockholm‘, Boivin mentioned
Avery’s work in a paper with the magnificent title “‘Le réle des
deux acides nucléiques dans la constitution et dans Ja vie de
la cellule bactérienne, et plus généralement de toutes les
cellules vivantes”. In 1949 a Society for General Microbiology
Symposium® was enlivened by intermittent discord between
Harriett Taylor, who was working in Avery's laboratory, and
Stacey. They disagreed profoundly on the interpretation of the
work but agreed completely about its importance. The editors
reported that discussion tactfully.

All those working on viruses, who were reasonably well
informed, knew of the suggestion by Muller? and Duggar and
Armstrong® that there were many analogies between viruses,
and genes that had broken loose from their moorings. The
suggestion is quoted in many papers published in the 1930s,
and we followed with interest any genetical, or quasi-genetical,
research that seemed relevant. It is not surprising therefore
that Stanley and Knight, who were at that time on the staff of
the Rockefeller Institute, referred to Avery’s work in a review
in 1945, I referred to it ina review in 1948'° and Bawden in the
third edition of Plant Viruses and Virus Diseases in 1950*?,

Bearing in mind that scientific communication and publica-
tion did not get properly restarted until “947, and that scientists
have never responded quickly to a change in fashionable
assumption as great as that involved in the dethronement of
protein and polysaccharide by nucleic acid'?, I feel that
Avery’s explanation of the “Griffith phenomenon” was in-
corporated into the general picture about as quickly as could
have been expected.

N. W. Pirie
Rothamsted Experimental Station,
Harpenden, Hertfordshire

Received October 18, 1972.

1 Lederberg, J., Nature, 239, 234 (1972).

Olby, R., Nature, 239, 295 (1972).

Avery, O. T., MacLeod, C. M., and McCarty, M., J. Exp. Med.,
79, 137 (1944).

Symp. Soc. Exp. Biol., Nucleic Acid, 1 (Cambridge University
Press, 1947).

5 Pres Sixth Internat. Cong. Exp. Cytol., Exp. Cell Res, Suppl.,1

1949),
& Symp. Soc. Gen. Microbiol., The Nature of the Bacterial Surface,1
(Blackwell, Oxford, 1949).

7 Muller, H. J., Amer. Naturalist, 56, 32 (1922).

Duggar, B. M., and Armstrong, J. K., Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard.,
10, 191 (1923).

Stanley, W. M., and Knight, C. A., Actualités Medico-chirurgi-
cales, 6 (Belgian American Educational Foundation Inc., New
York, 1945).

10 Pirie, N. W., Brit. Med. Bull., 5, 329 (1948).

11 Bawden, F. C., Plant Viruses and Virus Diseases, Chronica

Botanica (1950).
12 Birie NW... Arch. Biochem. Biophys. Supp..1, 21 (1962).

wn

a

©