As was the case with the volume The chemistry of organic arsenic, antimony and bismuth
compounds, published in 1994, it was clear that the set of five volumes describing
organometallic compounds (edited by Professor Frank R. Hartley) did not deal in suffi-
cient depth with organic compounds of germanium, tin and lead. Hence we decided to
publish the present volume, which we hope will be a useful and worthwhile addition
to the series The Chemistry of Functional Groups. In this volume the authors’ literature
search extended in most cases up to the end of 1994.
The following chapters unfortunately did not materialize: Mass spectra; NMR and
Mossbauer spectroscopy; Organic Ge, Sn and Pb compounds as synthones; Ge, Sn and ¨
Pb analogs of radicals and of carbenes; and Rearrangements. Moreover, the volume does
not contain a ‘classical’ chapter on biochemistry, although much of the relevant material is
included in the chapter on environmental methylation of Ge, Sn and Pb and in the chapter
on the toxicity of organogermanium compounds, in the chapter on organotin toxicology
and also in the chapter on safety and environmental effects.
I hope that the above shortcomings will be amended in one of the forthcoming supplementary
volumes of the series.
I will be indebted to readers who will bring to my attention mistakes or omissions in
this or in any other volume of the series