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Heart, kidney and electrolytes
Book reoiews
authors of simple books cannot as simple as this. This book chapter in a general textbook although it would be unfair equally difficult to praise it.
afford to be quite could easily be a on medicine, and, to damn it, it is
FAINTING.PHYSIOLOGICALAND PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIOXS. By George L. Engel, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, and Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, N. Y. Second edition, Springfield, Ill., 1962, Charles C Thomas, Publisher, 196 pages. Price $7.50. Dr.
Engel starts his excellent monograph with the statement that probably no clinical symptom is as well known among lay people as fainting. Throughout much of the book he uses the word syncope as a synonym. He derives syncope from the Greek, via Webstev’s New International Dictionary, to mean “a cutting short.” Liddell and Scott’s Oxford Greek English Lexicon, by contrast, gives “falling down in a swoon, sudden loss of strength,” as used by Aretaeus and Galen. The introductory chapter closes with a fine classification of fainting. The second and third chapters deal with circulatory and cardiac mechanisms, important factors in most instances of fainting. The two main types, i.e., \Tasodepressor and postural hypotension, are described well, as are also those varieties associated with cardiac disorders: cardiac standstill, transient and paroxysmal heart block, paroxysmal tachycardia, coronary insufficiency, and myocardial infarction. In the fourth chapter, Dr. Engel describes the sundry respiratory disorders associated with which include hyperventilation, the fainting, \‘alsalva maneuver, and the interesting cough syncope. The nest two chapters concern themselves with neuropsychiatric disorders, which are discussed with particular skill. The book closes with chapters on the incidence and diag-
nosis of fainting. as a good survey mon problem.
289
The monograph is recommended of current knowledge of a rom-
HEART, KIDNEY AND ELECTROLYTES. Edited by Charles K. Friedberg, M.D., Cardiologist and Attending Physician for Cardiology, The Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, and Associate Professor of Medicine, Columbia University, New York. New York, 1962, Grune & Stratton, Inc., 420 pages. Price $11.75. This book is a reprinted series of papers by a group of distinguished investigators from the Symposium on Heart, Kidney and Electrol>tes, published in the journal, Progress in Curdiozlascular Diseases. There are 21 articles covering the various aspects of fluid and electrolyte regallation and its disturbances in diseases of the circulation and of the kidneys. Each article is followed by 50 to 100 references. The preface describes the articles as authoritative, lucid, and informative. They are certainly authoritative and informative, but such subjects as membrane transport and counter systems of concentration cannot be explained simply, and mauy reatiers will not find these chapters to he lucid. There is an emphasis throughout the book on interpretation of clinical phenomena in the light of known experimental data, and this is a healthy corrective to the more glib and unsupported hypotheses with which most clinicians are familiar. In many instances the chapters overlap in their subject material (for instance, there are three papers which discuss hyponatremia in cardiac failure), but there is sufficient agreement upon the main principles so that this serves to help rather than confuse the reader. The book can be strongly recommended to all who have an academic interest in fluid and electrolyte problems.
authors of simple books cannot as simple as this. This book chapter in a general textbook although it would be unfair equally difficult to praise it.
afford to be quite could easily be a on medicine, and, to damn it, it is
FAINTING.PHYSIOLOGICALAND PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIOXS. By George L. Engel, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, and Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, N. Y. Second edition, Springfield, Ill., 1962, Charles C Thomas, Publisher, 196 pages. Price $7.50. Dr.
Engel starts his excellent monograph with the statement that probably no clinical symptom is as well known among lay people as fainting. Throughout much of the book he uses the word syncope as a synonym. He derives syncope from the Greek, via Webstev’s New International Dictionary, to mean “a cutting short.” Liddell and Scott’s Oxford Greek English Lexicon, by contrast, gives “falling down in a swoon, sudden loss of strength,” as used by Aretaeus and Galen. The introductory chapter closes with a fine classification of fainting. The second and third chapters deal with circulatory and cardiac mechanisms, important factors in most instances of fainting. The two main types, i.e., \Tasodepressor and postural hypotension, are described well, as are also those varieties associated with cardiac disorders: cardiac standstill, transient and paroxysmal heart block, paroxysmal tachycardia, coronary insufficiency, and myocardial infarction. In the fourth chapter, Dr. Engel describes the sundry respiratory disorders associated with which include hyperventilation, the fainting, \‘alsalva maneuver, and the interesting cough syncope. The nest two chapters concern themselves with neuropsychiatric disorders, which are discussed with particular skill. The book closes with chapters on the incidence and diag-
nosis of fainting. as a good survey mon problem.
289
The monograph is recommended of current knowledge of a rom-
HEART, KIDNEY AND ELECTROLYTES. Edited by Charles K. Friedberg, M.D., Cardiologist and Attending Physician for Cardiology, The Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, and Associate Professor of Medicine, Columbia University, New York. New York, 1962, Grune & Stratton, Inc., 420 pages. Price $11.75. This book is a reprinted series of papers by a group of distinguished investigators from the Symposium on Heart, Kidney and Electrol>tes, published in the journal, Progress in Curdiozlascular Diseases. There are 21 articles covering the various aspects of fluid and electrolyte regallation and its disturbances in diseases of the circulation and of the kidneys. Each article is followed by 50 to 100 references. The preface describes the articles as authoritative, lucid, and informative. They are certainly authoritative and informative, but such subjects as membrane transport and counter systems of concentration cannot be explained simply, and mauy reatiers will not find these chapters to he lucid. There is an emphasis throughout the book on interpretation of clinical phenomena in the light of known experimental data, and this is a healthy corrective to the more glib and unsupported hypotheses with which most clinicians are familiar. In many instances the chapters overlap in their subject material (for instance, there are three papers which discuss hyponatremia in cardiac failure), but there is sufficient agreement upon the main principles so that this serves to help rather than confuse the reader. The book can be strongly recommended to all who have an academic interest in fluid and electrolyte problems.