The Carbohydrates [antikvár]

PREFACE "The Carbohydrates" is a complete revision and expansion in scope of the earlier "Chemistry of the Carbohydrates."* Two new chapters have been added covering photosynthesis and metabolism (Chapter XIII) and nutritional aspects (Chapter XIV). These additions and the general increase in the coverage of biochemical and physiological aspects reflect the great progress made in biochemistry during the past decade and the important position of the carbohydrates in the processes of life. Marked advances have also been made in recent years especially in reaction mechanisms, stereochemistry of strainless rings, transglycosylation, development of methods for the synthesis of radioactive sugars and their analysis, chromatography and related methods of analysis, identification of tissue carbohydrates in situ (histochemistry), and isolation and characterization of animal polysaccharides and their protein complexes. These developments have been brought into the present work. The vast accumulated literature and the almost terrifying rate of growth create new problems continually. In this volume references are given to about 4500 individual articles, representing the result of the careful examination through much of 1956 of several times this number of articles. In turn, these represent only a small fraction of the actual carbohydrate literature. As a result, considerable selection of material was necessary, and the fullness of the treatment varies. Subjects such as the sugars and their derivatives are discussed in detail, whereas such subjects as the polysaccharides, which have been considered satisfactorily in other monographs, have been condensed. References to more detailed treatments help to increase the coverage. The relatively scanty general coverage by the current eleven volumes of the "Advances in Carbohydrate Chemistry" is witness to the broad scope and depth of the subject of the carbohydrates. The literature and the available knowledge in the field of carbohydrates, like those of the corresponding fields of the proteins and of the enzymes, are similar in magnitude to those in such broad fields as medicine and dentistry. Preparation of a monograph on starch alone involves dealing with more research material and more basic literature than some specialized branches of medicine. In order to prevent this new book from being simply an expansion of the old one, considerable borderline material was deleted, and the polysacoha- * W. W. Pigman and R. M. Goepp, Jr., "Chemistry of the Carbohydrates." Academic Press, New York, 1948. vii