The Management of Common Skin Diseases

ONE of a series of 'Concise Medical Textbooks', this book is intended primarily for students but also as a handbook for physicians and nurses. The whole field of cardiology is covered with clarity and brevity, yet for the interested student there is a surprising amount of relevant detail. A multitude of diagrams illustrate the text and often throw into sharp contrast items which might otherwise be difficult to distinguish. Worth special mention is a chapter devoted to radiology of the heart and cardiac investigation where the techniques, risks and rationale for the procedures are well presented, excessive detail being, as elsewhere, avoided. The chapter on congenital heart disease includes a section on neonatal cardiology, a topic of increasing importance. The reader may justifiably criticise the section dealing with acute myocardial infarction. Patients dying soon after the onset of the attack are written off as unsalvageable and, ins sufficient emphasis is given to the importance of autonomic disturbances and their correction in the pre-hospital phase. An important flaw elsewhere in the book is that the suggested dose of one preparation of Quinidine is only one half of that conventionally used.