Nephrons and Kidneys

SPECTACULAR FOLIO ATLAS OF MICRODISSECTED NEPHRONS FROM DEVELOPING HUMAN FETAL KIDNEYS.

18 inches tall folio hardcover, publisher's black cloth binding, gilt title to cover and spine, frontis plate of developing nephrons, x, 117 pp, 27 plates (with overlaid tracings applied to first 21 plates), and 25 text figures, fine in custom archival mylar cover.

NEPHRONS AND KIDNEYS represents the culmination of years of study and meticulous work. As described by his colleague Stanley E. Bradley, "Long before leaving Brooklyn, Oliver had begun a long struggle with the intractable problems of working out in full tridimensionality and continuity the course of changes involved in normal development and growth of the human kidney. That painful labor at last bore fruit in 1968 in the publication of a monograph entitled Nephrons and Kidneys—A Quantitative Study of Developmental and Evolutionary Mammalian Renal Architectonics—Based on the microdissections of Muriel Mac Dowell. The beauty of this work—a Golconda of raw data presented as photomontages and tracings of astonishingly complete dissections of the tiny fetal nephrons and collecting systems in twenty-five 12 x 17 inch plates—is equalled only by the widsom of the Directors of the Commonwealth Fund in making publication financially feasible. The specimens examined were 18 fetal or neonatal kidneys ranging in age from approximately 2 to 9 months, weighing from 15 mg to 24 g. ... Oliver himself has brought to nephrology a scientific, philosophical and poetic vision and we are all the richer for it. His concern for the existential presumptions that inform and undergird our terminology and conceptual thought has lifted each of his papers and books to a much higher and more meaningful i ntellectual plane than one usually encounters in the scientific literature."--S.E. Bradley: Jean Redman Oliver in Context, Kidney Int. Vol. 5 (1974) pp 77-95.

REVIEW BY G.H. FETTERMAN in Annals of Internal Medicine, September 1968: "This book will not fit on the average shelf, but then. it is not an average hook. It is beautifully written and superbly illustrated."

REVIEW BY L.J. McCORMACK in JAMA, December 1968: "One can only praise the elegant presentation of the development of the human nephron, found in this folio. ... The incredible microdissections are most convincing, and as a consequence, one is forced to discard the timehonored concept of two structures within the kidney growing towards each other and uniting."

JEAN REDMAN OLIVER (1889-1976) earned his AB and MD from Stanford University, where he remained on faculty from 1914 to 1929, interrupted in 1916-1919 by studies at the Rockefeller Institute. From 1929 to 1950, he was Head of the Department of Pathology at Long Island College of Medicine, then moved to the State University of New York Medical College where he remained until retiring as professor emeritus 1955. This was followed by 17 years of continued productivity, as he established his laboratory at the Overlook Hospital in Summit, New Jersey, and was joined by his brilliant assistant, Muriel MacDowell, who mastered the microdissection techniques. They outgrew their quarters at Overlook Hospital, and became investigators of CIBA Pahrmaceuticals in Summit, supported by NIH grants. Oliver was a highly innovative pathologist who played a critical role in the development of nephrology in the 20th century by appreciating the inportance of nephron heterogeneity in kidney disease, and the correlation of nephron structure with function. The latter became possible by his collaboration with renal physiologists (A.N. Richards, A.M. Walker, and C.W. Gottschalk) who developed single nephron micropuncture techniques.