We keep receiving books for review from various publishers. However some books are of such paramount importance that we at the journal office thought one review may not be able to do justice to that book. One opinion may be slanted, perhaps by the individual tastes and preferences of the reviewer. Reviewers from different continents, nations, even different parts of the same nation may perceive a book differently. Why not send books to two or more different reviewers and get their opinion. We requested several publishers to do that and they obliged.

From Volume 3, Number 1, January - June 2002, we started reviews of certains books of paramount importance as "featured books". The first book to be featured on our journal was Ecotoxicology: The Study of Pollutants in Ecosystems by F. Moriarty (Published by Academic Press). Review of that book, as well as the combined index of reviews of all featured books can be accessed by clicking here.

Earlier this year we sent Endocrine Pathology- Differential Diagnosis And Molecular Advances edited by Ricardo V. Lloyd (Published by Humana Press), to two reviewers from two different continents. Their reviews appeared in this very issue on page 2. Later we sent Glutamate and Addiction edited by Barbara H. Herman and co-edited by Jerry Frankenheim, Raye Z. Litten, Philip H. Sheridan, Forrest F. Weight and Steven R. Zukin (Published by Humana Press), whose review was published at page 6.

This time we received an excellent book on toxicology. This has been written by arguably the greatest toxicologist in the Asian continent, Professor V.V.Pillay, who currently teaches at the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Cochin.

When the book came to us, our primary job was to find four leading experts on toxicology who could adjudicate this great book. These were Dr. Gyan Fernando of UK, Dr. John Doull, USA, Dr. Wayne Jones of Sweden and Dr. John Trestrail of USA. All four are great toxicology experts, with many having written bestsellers themselves. The book was sent to all of them and they were requested to evaluate the book independently.

The reviewers were not only requested to send us detailed reviews, but were asked to rate this book on a scale of ten. The following rating scale was provided to the reviewers.

0: Waste of time
1: Of minimal interest
2: Of little interest
3: Of some interest
4: Slightly below average
5: Average
6: Slightly above average
7: Good
8: Very Good
9: Excellent
10: Truly Outstanding

 Here are all the four reviews - with ratings, and much more. There are exclusive extracts from the book as well! Click the links below to visit these.