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Benchmarks is the latest book in the Princeton Scientific Publishing Company's series entitled "Advances in Modern Environmental Toxicology" edited by M. A. Mehlman. As such, Benchmarks is a departure from the main series theme of environmental toxicology to the area of alternatives to animal testing. The preface states that Benchmarks is the first of several planned books on this issue in the series. Benchmarks represents a slightly different perspective on the issue of alternatives to animal testing and is a welcome addition to the currently small and narrowly focused literature on alternatives to animal tests.
The chapters in Benchmarks provide a survey of the various scientific avenues open to those interested in alternatives to animal tests for biomedical research and consumer product safety testing. These avenues or approaches are basically two at the present time: computer modeling and in vitro cell or tissue culture tests. The first seven chapters of