Perspectives in Virology IV

and has written one book, several articles and a bibliography on the history of surgical anesthesia. Dr. Faulconer, professor of anesthesiology at Mayo, in addition to being a clinical anesthetist, has an extensive bibliography of his own on the general subject of anesthesiology. Together they have made an excellent selection of many of the significant, fundamental papers in the field. There are 151 articles, including translations of 49 foreign language papers, several of which appear in English for the first time. The two volumes are divided into eight major sections which include respiratory phvsiology, anesthetic agents, techniques, apparatus and theories of anesthesia. All sections begin with short introductory essays and the subsequent papers are listed in chronological order. There is a brief biography of each author. Each volume has a complete table of contents and subject and author indices. In any collection such as this, one could easily criticize the inclusion or omission of a number of significant papers but, as the editors state, "It is not the intent or the claim of the compilers that the papers represent all the excellent basic or classic works in this field." However, although there are 255 pages devoted to a section in respiratory physiology, there are no sections on circulatory or nerve physiology. There is a small subsection on the measurement of blood pressure with the welcome inclusion of the rarely seen paper, "A New Sphygmomanometer,"' by Scipione Riva-Rocci. The obvious assets of this book are twofold: (1) easy access to a large number of classic or source articles directly available only in a small niumber of large libraries, and (2) good English translations of important foreign papers. These volumes provide fascinating reading and should be in the library of all anesthesiology departments.