VOLUME 35 ^NO. 3 CNREA8 •¿PP 473 - 864 March 1975 COVER LEGEND The Israeli zoologist Israel Aharoni in 1930 captured for Professor Israel Aharoni (right) was born in Lithuania in 1882 and died in Saul Adler at the University of Jerusalem one male and two female Israel in 1946. He studied zoology and Semitic languages at the littermates of Mesocricetus auratus (Nature, 162: 256, 1948). From University of Prague, Czechoslovakia, and later became lecturer in these three animals H. Ben Menahem in Adler's laboratory quickly zoology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was a pioneer in established that this species breeds readily in captivity. Thus, the the study of the fauna of Israel and its neighboring countries, es Syrian golden hamster, M. auratus, replaced the hard to obtain pecially Syria and Turkey. Aharoni discovered many species of Chinese hamster, Cricetus griseus, which Adler had to import from the animals hitherto unknown, and he succeeded in raising the golden Orient for his studies on kala azar. Since then Syrian hamsters have hamster that became one of the important experimental animals been used in laboratory research throughout the world at the rate for medical research. His work is narrated in his autobiography, of some 800,000 per year in the U.S.A. alone. Many inbred strains Memoirs of a Hebrew Zoologist, Tel-Aviv: Am Oved Publishers, have been developed and much knowledge has been gained on the 1942. physiology and pathology of this species (cf. R. A. Hoffman et a!. Saul Adler (left) was born in Russia in 1895 and died in Israel in (eds.), The Golden Hamster, Its Biology and Use in Medical Re 1966. He was graduated from the University of Leeds, England, search. Ames, Iowa; Iowa State University Press, 1968; and F. School of Medicine, and studied tropical diseases in Liverpool. Dur Homburger et a!., Progr. Exptl. Tumor Res., 16: 152, 1972. ing World War I, he served as physician and pathologist in the Syrian hamsters gained special significance in cancer research with British army in Iraq. In 1924 he became professor at the Hebrew the discovery of their ability to accept heterotransplants, especially of University of Jerusalem, Israel, and head of the Institute of Para human neoplastic tissue, in the cheek pouch. Since 1941 they have sitology at the University. His activities focused on the etiology, been used extensively in carcinogenesis research. Marked differences pathology, and means of transfer of pathological parasites in humans in susceptibility have been noted for certain forms of viral and and animals and on chemotherapy of tropical diseases. These in chemical carcinogenesis among various inbred strains. Because of the cluded malaria, leprosis, dysentery, Leishmania diseases, and their extremely low incidence of spontaneous tumors, hamsters are useful transmitters (sand flies). for lifetime exposure studies of carcinogens. The urinary bladder of Two animals of inbred BIO®strains of TELACO®, Bar Harbor, hamsters responds to known bladder carcinogens with tumor forma Maine, are shown: left, acromelanic white; right, banded animal. tion, whereas the rat and mouse bladders fail to do so. Among interest We are indebted to Dr. Freddy Homburger for the material and ing models of human disease that have been discovered in inbred information. The portraits are reproduced from D. Tidhar (ed.), lines of Syrian hamsters are cardiomyopathy, muscular dystrophy, The Encyclopaedia of the Pioneers of the Jewish Community in obesity, adrenal neoplasia, neuropathies, and hydrocephalus. Israel, Tel Aviv, 1947..