BOOK REVIEWS 121 good perspective chapters, that of Haynes being American Indian and 05 per cent European ancestry. especially helpful. Good meetings do not invariably The study of immunoglobulin phenotypes confirms these generate good books. This one has and it should be admixture figures as well as throwing light on the extent made widely available to provide a glimpse into a com- of the St Vincent-Honduran similarities and differences. plex and fascinating field. To summarise, Black Caribs of Belize have more African—and St Vincent more American—haplotypes. R. T. JOHNSON The Gm haplotypes permit some reconstruction of the Cancer Research Campaign past population structure and it would seem that the Mammalian Cell DNA Repair Group majority of the components were present in the founding populations prior to deportation from St Vincent. The Department of Zoology St Vincent populations are genetically more hetero- Cambridge University geneous due primarily to variation in amounts of admix- ture among local subpopulations and the isolation of Current developments in anthropological genetics. communities from one another. Vol. 3 Black Caribs. A case study in biocultural The other area of specific genetic interest relates to adaptation. M. H. Crawford (ed.). Plenum Press, abnormal haemoglobins. The Black Caribs have New York. 1984. Pp. xvii+395. Price $59.50 US. remained until quite recently under heavy malarial pres- sure both from Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium fa!- This is the third volume in this series, the first two ciparum. Sickle-cell trait heterozygote carriers have been volumes dealt with theory and methods, and ecology shown to be more resistant to malarial infestation than and population structure respectively. This volume normal homozygotes and in particular, children who are differs from its predecessors in that it provides an in- carriers appear resistant to cerebral malaria. Work by depth survey of one particular group, the Black Carib Firschein in Belize published in 1961 revealed a very peoples. The Black Caribs (Garifuna) were originally high sickle-cell carrier rate and he suggested that the the products of intermixture between runaway West haemoglobin polymorphism is maintained by differen- African slaves and Carib-Arawak Indians of the eastern tial fertility rather than by differential mortality. The Caribbean. The Black Caribs are to be found on St. hypothesis was retested by Custodio and Huntsman Vincent Island and in Central America around the Bay (chapter 17) but unfortunately their data are not con- of Honduras. They have an interesting history (see chap- clusive. ters 1 to 4) which needs to be understood for the reader This is a wide ranging and full study although there to fully appreciate their evolution. are clearly some topics awaiting future research (see In brief, there are three main Carib groups; the South chapter 19). Even so an excellent book—highly recom- American Caribs who live north of the Amazon; the mended. Island Caribs—those who migrated from the mainland NICK MASCIE-TAYLOR initially onto the Lesser Antilles. After 200 or so years Department of Physical Anthropology of European depredations they were confined to University of Cambridge Dominica and St. Vincent. After a series of wars with the British, the Carib population was deported to Roatan Island, Honduras. Aetiological studies of isolated common congenital One hundred or fewer managed to avoid capture and abnormalities in Hungary. A. Czeizel and G. their descendants constitute the contemporary Black Tusnády. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest. 1984. Pp. Carib population on St Vincent. The 2500 Caribs de- xv + 359. Price unspecified. ported to Roatan Island rapidly emigrated to the Central American mainland. The coast of Honduras already Congenital malformations are now the major cause of contained some Creole settlements, thus there was anxiety for prospective parents, and provide a substan- genetic admixture. The Black Caribs have now spread tial proportion of the deaths and disabilities in infancy along the coast and today live in 52 villages and number and childhood. In most of the common forms, surgery about 70,000. has a major contribution to offer, varying from cure with The book is divided into three parts, sociocultural a minor scar in pyloric stenosis to the replacing of natural and demographic (chapters 1 through 7); morphological death by unnatural life in severe spina bifida. (chapters 8 to 13); and genetic aspects (chapters 14 to For reasons which are not clear, but probably go no 20). This review is concerned mainly with part III. The deeper than the semantic confusion of congenital and genetic studies undertaken by Professor Crawford and genetic, geneticists have taken a greater interest in com- his colleagues have been designed to determine the mon fetal disease than in common disorders arising after extent of admixture and genetic microdifferentiation of birth, yet malformations receive priority among the con- Black Carib communities over a relatively short geo- sequences to be expected from any increase in the muta- graphical separation. The analyses reported in chapters tion rate. Both the BEIR and UNSCEAR reports allow 14 to 17 cover these aspects in detail. Evidence from this group of disorders pride of place, virtually ignoring blood group, haemoglobin and enzyme markers suggests recessive disorders, which might seem the natural leaders contributions of about 755 per cent African, 24 per cent of this host of death and destruction. If UNSCEAR were 122 BOOK REVIEWS

to make special reference to the Hungarian data, with bereft of uncles or aunts, or both, and why are the few its 5 per cent incidence of congenital dislocation of the uncles and aunts they have so prolific? Why does the hip at birth, then this documentation would be of par- number of children per uncle or aunt vary from 134 in ticular importance, especially as direct evidence support- anencephaly and spina bifida to 075 in congenital heart ing congenital abnormality as a major source of disease disease and 080 in club foot? has been strangely lacking in mOst countries, and those This is a major contribution to the incidence of these of us working with patients are largely restricted to such common disorders in Hungary, and, as the study is excellent, but ageing, compendia as those of Warkany continuing, there is every prospect of the next edition and Smith, neither of which are dominated by common displaying major predisposing causes amenable to con- disorders supported by solid and substantial data on trol. In spina bifida the marked seasonal incidence must incidence. Czeizel and Tusnády provide the fruits of reflect environmental features distinct from the U.K., their labours on the ten commonest malformations, which makes this country an ill-assorted partner in the including undescended testis and inguinal hernia, com- MRC vitamin trial. Even those of us sceptical about mon disorders somewhat lacking in most series. Their partitioning variances in disorders so far from the mean data, based on over a million births in and around that the Gaussian approximations are unlikely to hold Budapest from 1970-75, are tabulated in detail, with (if dwarfism or obesity were studied in this way we special reference to the "multifactorial model", for would hardly learn much, although within 15 standard which Tusnády has developed procedures for estimating deviations height and weight are fairly Gaussian), we heritability, in all its various forms, by the efficient and must be grateful for the intellectual stimulus this model direct methods of surveying the density distribution in has provided to the collection of data suited to the a bivariate surface. The procedures follow the basic analytical methods used. methods advanced by Pearson some 80 years ago, but This is a most valuable set of data, and as it is use the terminology of Fisher and Mather, and the introduced by a balanced and comprehensive introduc- general approach associated with Carter and Falconer. tion, and the standard of English exceeds that of most Geneticists seem fairly evenly split between those untranslated books, it may be commended to anyone who find the accountancy of sums of squares helpful, dealing with malformations, or interested in a lucid and those who do not. Those of us who consider that review of the multifactonial model and its application once the minority of Mendelian disorders are removed to real data. by their pattern of inheritance, and the chromosomal, virological, and incompatibility disorders by laboratory procedures, then what we are left with must be multifac- REFERENCE tonal, find it difficult to appreciate the possibility of any more positive proof. The normal distribution has a beauty of its own, like the circles and epicircles of EDWARDS,J. H. 1960. The simulation of Mendelism. Acta. Ptolemy, but this does not confer any right for nature Genet. (Basel), JO,63—70. to follow art. PROFESSOR J. H. EDWARDS In man the environment is familial, and in my paper Genetics Laboratory of 1960, which they quote, I was careful to include "haemophilia, silicosis and malnutrition" as familial Department of Biochemistry disorders. The authors do indeed find that parentage University of Oxford matters in disorders to which the flesh is heir, but this does little to help to identify ways in which the flesh is Sickle cell anaemia—who cares? Usha Prashar, further weakened by environmental excesses or deficien- Elizabeth Anionwu and Milica Brozovié. The Run- cies. The present heritability figures vary from 034 to 120, although the formal nature of the latter is not nymede Trust, London. 1985. Pp. 62. Price £2.00. explained. Nor is the wide variation in heritability by While our ability to recognise genetic disorders and in sex of propositus, or of the second case explained. There some cases to cope with their symptoms has increased are no data by "social class", or "education"; although enormously in recent years, we continue to be much less these might be expected to be muted and even obscured effective than we might be in putting our knowledge into in a well-run socialist country, data on occupation and practice. Sometimes this is because we fail to recognise education attainment were coded. the importance of social and psychological aspects of One remarkable table, giving unique data on num- the diseases or, more simply, it may prove impossible bers of parents, sibs, aunts and uncles, and cousins, is to provide the necessary resources in the face of compet- hardly discussed. In a stable community, on average, ing claims from the better established branches of every mature child will have four cousins. At birth each medicine. child will average half a sib, one aunt, one uncle, and This attractively produced booklet describes a survey two cousins. The population of Hungary is not stable, which reveals just how poor our services are for those but even so the remarkable difference in the proportions with sickle cell disease in England and it argues for what of relatives for each disorder must contain some clues we ought to have. It would be over-complacent to say to causation. Why are boys with undescended testes so that prenatal and neonatal screening and counselling