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This volume is the compilation of papers presented at an international workshop in February 1975 in Göttingen, West Germany. Twenty-three lectures are bracketed by an introduction by J. V. Neel that outlines the problems of the genetics of diabetes and a closing summary by him of the meaning of genetic heterogeneity. The promise of the editors in their foreword that "the confusion about the mode of inheritance of diabetes mellitus during the last two decades can only be resolved by joint discussions between geneticists interested in diabetes and clinical diabetologists interested in genetics" is not met in this volume nor would one expect it to be. One need not read so extensive a volume to appreciate the importance of the concept of genetic heterogeneity in current thinking about diabetes. Zonana and Rimoin (N Engl J Med 295:603-605, 1976) provide an adequate summary for that purpose, as well as a symposium soon