Psychiatric Aspects of Neurologic Disease

"Penetrating the Defenses: How Antimicrobial Agents Reach Their Targets"; and "The Problems of Resistance to Antimicrobial Drugs." According to the Preface to the first edition, the text is drawn from lecture notes given to undergraduate students and is aimed at them and at "advanced students in many disciplines," as well as scientists "new to this area of research." As an introduction to the field, the book does function to cover a very broad range of antimicrobial agents and the cell structures and mechanisms by which they work, the best chapters being those dealing with the cell wall and with DNA and protein synthesis. The major failing of the book is that it is perhaps unlikely to be satisfying to the intended audience. The biochemical detail, while perhaps appropriate to an undergraduate course in biochemistry, is probably too superficial for the advanced student in biochemistry and yet excessively complex for the student of internal medicine or even of infectious diseases. The clinical correlations are very brief and sometimes inaccurate, as when nystatin is mentioned as preferred treatment for systemic fungal infection, or outdated, as when isoniazid, para-amino-salicylic acid and streptomycin are listed as standard therapy for tuberculosis. Attempts to use the book as a stepping stone to more detailed reading on any given matter are, in part, frustrated by the use of brief "further reading" lists at the end of each chapter, without textual references. A major omission from the book is the absence of any detailed discussion of the biochemical basis of synergism or antagonism of antimicrobial compounds. The major advantage of the book is its brevity. While not for general medical audiences, for those unfamiliar with the fundamental aspects of the biochemistry of antimicrobial agents and having a need to know, this book will serve as a fairly readable overview of the subject, the above criticisms notwithstanding. WILLIAM H. GREENE Department of Medicine Yale University School of Medicine