Book dossier

Behavioral toxicology

by Rochester International Conference on Environmental Toxicity (5th 1972), Bernard Weiss

Behavioral toxicology is a young discipline in the United States; so young, in fact, that this is one of its first books. Behavioral questions are bound to play a major role in future scientific work and governmental decisions involving the health effects of environmental contaminants and other chemicals. This role springs from two key problems that face scientists and public agencies required to set acceptable exposure standards or to determine criteria for the toxicity of therapeutic chemicals: How do you evaluate effects that may show up only as subtle functional disturbances? And how do you de­ tect toxic effects early enough so that they may still be reversible, before they produce major damage? The contributions in this book come from a collection of scientists whose interests span a wide variety of problem areas. The focus is largely on me­ thodological issues because they represent the most immediate concern of the discipline. We expect that this collection of papers will represent a useful source book for behavioral toxicology for some time. For the past few years, the University of Rochester's Department of Radiation Biology and Biophysics has sponsored a series of international conferences on chemical toxicity, partly as a response to concern over the con­ sequences to health of the rich chemical soup in which we live. This book is based upon presentations made to the fifth of the series. Held in June, 1972, it was the first formal meeting devoted to behavioral toxicology in this country.