The usefulness of solvent effect studies on NMR chemical shifts need not be elabo rated here; many applications of solvent effects continue to be published in great profusion. Quite a few intermolecular phenomenae may contribute to solvent shifts, but there is always the ubiquitous Van der Waals effect ow. Contrary to such other effects as neighbour anisotropy 0a, reaction field contribution 0E or complexation effects 0e, no major direct use has yet been found for the Van der Waals effect. So far the role of the Van der Waals effect has been that of a nasty, disturbing phenom enon, something...