February 23, 1953

Dear Professor Fringshein:

Thank you for your letter of February 7. I am gratified that together
with your oritician you hed some appreciation of the elreumstances that
might lead to yom “few miacr defaults” in ar review. I could not and do
not pretend to be au cxpert in the numevyrus fields. It may have been
foolhardy te accept tue assignnent, hub tt was invited by the editors,
and IT au not ashamed Ww display ay ignoranes.

It is very diffiuwl.t for san outsider to integrste the conflicting
claims in the Eugionu work, for it Ls not easy (28 your rebuttal paper
mentions) to obtain u clear picture of the controversial issues. Frankly,
I couid nvt make zauch suase out of Lwoffts 1950 naver on ths leucoplasts,
but do not know whebher this ds due to ar own dafeets in translation or
understanding. ror taig reason, «ay resune was entlrely too noncomlittal.
Iv i ever again aubscribe to the folly of a review ench as this, I hope
I will have tas tim to go over this miter&sl core carefully.

You are not the first to remark on the bringing together of authors!
references. It was an unwise attempt at economy, prompted by the pressure
from the editors to minimize space.

Concerning the effects of streptomycin, T have had some small experience
myself with higher plants (mafic, radish) in securing bleached sectora.
this is too far out of ay cim field, but I hope this line of work will be
continuedy by others. Have I misquoted you on the Ternetz' phenomenon? Lwoff,
among otWers, reported and reviewed the result, for which you are cited as
having evoked a correct explanation from ypur wwn work.

I am not sure why you emphasize the effectiveness of temperature as well
as streptomycin treatmeat in inducing apochlordeie. Id it perhaps by the follow
reasoning: if temperature induces apochlorésis by hindering the multiplication
of the chromatophore, rather than by destroying it, it would be less reasonable
to suppose that residual fraguents persist and are involved in amylon synthesis

Please be sure that I accept your criticisms with the same good will
with which they are offered,
Yourg sincerely,

Joshua Lederberg
Associate Professor of Genetics