Medical Primatology : History, Biological Foundations and Applications

Due to the high degree of biological similarity between primates and humans, monkeys and apes have been used successfully in medical research for many decades. Medical Primatology: History, Biological Foundations and Applications provides a comprehensive summary linking the use of monkeys and apes in biomedical research to their kinship with humans. The book begins by discussing the history of this research, and then focuses on the biological foundations upon which medical primatology has been built. Primate taxonomy and evolution are reviewed, using not only traditional sources of data, but also recent experimental evidence from molecular biology, genetics, and biomedicine that indicates the need to place higher simians in the family of man. Condensing a broad range of scientific literature into one volume, this will be a useful reference for specialists in the biological sciences and medicine, as well as researchers involved in biological, anthropological, biomedical, clinical, and pharmacological research on primates.