W. H. FREEMAN AND COMPANY a PUBLISHERS

660 MARKET STREET, SAN FRANCISCO 4, CALIFORNIA + TELEPHONE: YUKON 6-5115

March 22, 1957

Dr. Joshua Lederberg
c/o Ciba Foundation
41 Portland Place

London W. 1, England

Dear Joshua:

As I told you, I sent George Beadle that part of an
earlier letter of yours in which you outlined "the merits of
a rather weighty appendix", to ask for his commentary.

Beets asked one of his confreres, Joe Bertani. Given here-
with are, first, Beets' brief note and, second, Bertani's;:

"I asked Joe Bertani's opinion. He's our highest
authority on the subject and here's his answer. I
think he has pretty good judgment. I can't suggest
any items. First, I probably couldn't anyway but,
second, without knowing what he plans for the first
part, this is pretty difficult to judge. I guess
Bertani has no suggestions either."

"I'd include item 4, and omit items 1 and 2. (I
never read Griffith's paper, and it is possibly
true that it is hard to find in an average biologi-
cal library, but not, I'd guess, in any medical
library. The papers under 2. are readily available,)
As to 3 (Methods), I doubt if the publishers of the
first paper (a section in Methods in Medical Research,
VoT.~3) will give permission to reprint it. The
paper however is useful. As to the second paper on
methods (I gueSS it is the one on the "replica
plating" technique) it could easily be summarized in
one page,"
Item 1 Griffith, F. 1928 The Significance of pneumocoacal
types. Journal of Hygiene, 27: 113-159.

2 - The primary announcements of sexual crossing.
3 - The two papers on methods,
4 - About 10 pages of explicit laboratory exercises.

If I may add my two cents! worth, I subscribe to the idea
of including laboratory exercises. As to the papers on
methods: If the publisher will not permit you to reprint,
Bertani saying it is useful, I suggest that Bertani may have
the answer--restate in summarized form the gist of these
papers (ideas are not subject to copyright--only the expres-
sion of the ideas is). As to the first items you mention,
despite Bertani's comments, I would go along with you if you
decide to include them-~or a précis of then,

I might as well take this opportunity to add a suggestion
Dr. Lederberg -2- March 22, 1957

made to me by one of your admirers, who is both a topflight
scholar and a person with good sense. This man tells me

that he has heard a good deal of objection to your exposition,
based, he estimates, on a propensity you have for coining
terms with unnecessary abandon, so that even he agrees that

at times this habit annoys and distracts the reader. He sug-
gests that, while he will continue to admire your work
regardless of what you do about this, he hopes that you will
constrain yourself in this respect, /

AS ever,

Le

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