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The fascinating field of the interferons is thoroughly reviewed and brought up to date in this fine volume in the series,Frontiers of Biology. Though a multiauthored presentation, it contains surprisingly little redundancy, a compliment to the editor, N. B. Finter. Following a brief historical review that traces the development of the concept of interferons, a careful and revealing chapter presents the criteria that define a viral inhibitor as an interferon and a documented survey of the biological properties of those substances accepted as interferons. This is a particularly useful chapter, since it cites studies at various levels of observation from gross data on viral growth to intracellular information. Following are two chapters on interferon inducers, one on animal viruses and the second on nonviral substances that induce interferons. Together, these two chapters offer an insight into the problem. They also serve as fine starting points for those who wish
Daniel L. Weiß (1973) studied this question.