Invisible Colleges: Diffusion of Knowledge in Scientific Communities.

Abstract

Reviews qualifications to write these books.But he has an attractive if rather journalistic style, the data he presents are fully documented, and he includes useful appendices with additional technical information.In the first title the author has accumulated his evidence by detailed and extensive research, including encounters with addicts, pushers, and police.He examines all aspects of the drug and its use as an addictive agent, and provides fascinating trans- criptions of interviews and a chapter on "The British experience".In particular he points out the many myths and extensive mis-information concerning heroin and by so doing renders a useful service.Cocaine is more expensive and more fashionable.Several books on it have appeared recently and together with Ashley's they provide information which previously was very scanty.He presents a history of the drug and an account of its use by South American peoples, its popularity in the nineteenth century, the campaign against it, and of its recent reappearance as an addictive agent.Physical addiction to cocaine, according to Ashley, does not occur, so that again myths have grown up about it.In the last few years there has been a spate of books on drug addiction, occasioned by its extent in the world and by the anxiety of society wishing to understand more of the phenomenon in an attempt to suppress it.These books add to the corpus of knowledge, but not to successful treatment.