This volume is the first of a biannual series entitled Contemporary Nephrology. The series intends to provide the reader with a broad, authoritative review of the important developments that have occurred during the previous two years in the major areas of both basic and clinical nephrology. We have been fortunate to enlist a distinguished group of scientists, teachers, and clinicians to serve as members of the Editorial Board of this series. We are grateful to them for the outstand- ing contributions they have made to this first volume of Contemporary Nephrology. This volume has fifteen chapters. The first four chapters deal with more basic aspects of nephrology: Membrane Transport (Schafer); Renal Physiology (Knox and Spielman); Renal Metabolism (School- werth); and Renal Prostaglandins (Dunn). Chapters 5-10 are more pathophysiologically oriented, and each contains an "appropriate mix" of basic and clinical information.
This group of chapters includes Acid-Base Physiology and Pathophysiology (Arruda and Kurtzman); Mineral Metabolism in Health and Disease (Agus, Goldfarb, and Was- serstein); Hypertension and the Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone Axis (Williams and Hollenberg); Immunologically Mediated Renal Disease (Glassock); Acute Renal Failure and Toxic Nephropathy (Anderson and Gross); and the Kidney in Systemic Disease (Martinez-Maldonado). The last five chapters, which are more clinically oriented, include Uremia (Friedman and Lundin); Nutrition in Renal Disease (Mitch); Dialysis (Maher); Renal Transplantation (Strom); and, finally, Drugs and the Kidney (Bennett).