The first volume of Antibiotics was published in 1967 and contained a series of review papers on antibiotic actions. The editors, Drs. GOTTLIEB and SHAW, were aware of the rapid development of this field of study and provided a number of addenda in an effort to keep knowledge up to date while the book was in production. One year after the publication of Antibiotics I, this editor had a conference with Dr. KONRAD F. SPRINGER in which it became clear that another volume on actions of antibiotics would be necessary. For a variety of reasons, this was delayed until 1975 and became Antibiotics...

When Antibiotics I was published in 1967, the teleological view was held by some that" antibiotics" were substances elaborated by certain microorgan isms for the purpose of competing with other microorganisms for survival in mixed ecological environments. However, not only had J. EHRLICH and his associates shown 15 years earlier that chloramphenicol was produced by Strepto myces venezuelae in cultures of sterilized soils but not in parallel cultures of the same soils which were not sterilized, but operationally, the search for anti cancer antibiotics was actively under way (Antibiotics I...

It is not certain that the editors of Antibiotics I (1967), Drs. GOTTLffiB and SHAW, fully realized that they were laying the foundation for an entire series of which we present here Vol. VI. For some time to come, this will be the last volume of the Antibiotics series. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, the discovery of medicinally useful antibiotics has leveled off, because the number of microbiological products with antimicrobial properties is not infinite. In 1972 some 2500 antibiotic substances were known, of which approximately one per cent are clinically useful. Further...