The present review will be focused primarily on innovations in chromato graphic principles or practice, covering the literature since the review by Martin (1) two years ago. Many of the applications of chromatography are dealt with in other sections of the volume, particularly those pertaining to amino acids, proteins, nucleic acids, sterols, and carbohydrates. The reviews in these fields for both 1951 and 1952 may be consulted for recent literature references. A complete bibliography on the subject of chromatography is beyond the scope of one review. It has appeared desirable to limit the present section to a selection of some of the newer developments which are extending the usefulness of the method.Several books on chromatography have been published in the past two years. Adsorption and Chromatography by' Ca , ssidy treatment of the principles of adsorption analysis, Zechmeister (3) has pre pared a supplement to his earlier volume, covering developments in the period from 1938 to 1947. Lederer (4) has written a report on the progress in the chromatography of organic compounds in the period 1939 to 1949. Cramer (5) has prepared a brief monograph on paper chromatography and related techniques, issued in the summer of 1951. Reviews have been written by Strain (6, 7), Boulanger & Biserte (8), and Berl (9). Paper chromatogra phy has been reviewed by Clegg (10).Theory of "partition" chromatography.-Sufficient data have been ac cumulated on the performance of a variety of systems to merit a brief review of the theory and the terminology of chromatographic techniques. The con cept of liquid-liquid (or "partition") chromatography, as introduced by Martin & Synge, has, more than any other single factor, stimulated the development of new chromatographic methods within the past few years. In their approach to liquid-liquid chromatographic systems, Martin & Synge were particularly concerned with two special characteristics of liquids -the ability of solutes to diffuse into the interior of liquid droplets, which can increase the capacity of a column packing, ana the absence of rigidly oriented surfaces in fluid materials, which can yield a system free from some of the uncertainties of adsorption on solid surfaces. These two properties are capable of setting liquid-liquid columns clearly apart from liquid-solid chroma tograms.Most of the column packings used in "partition " chromatography, how ever, are actually gels rather than true liquids [Martin (1), Synge (11)]. As such, they still possess, to a considerable degree, the two important attri butes of liquids emphasized above. But gels also possess additional properties, and it is these which lead to some of the differences observed between true 521 Annu. Rev. Biochem. 1952.21:521-546. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org Access provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on 11/27/14. For personal use only. Quick links to online content Further ANNUAL REVIEWS 1 The term "liquid chromatogram" has been used [ef. (2)1 to refer to experiments in which the solutes ...