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Practical Section Cutting and Staining, 5th Edition, E. C. Clayden. 1971. Churchill, Livingstone, Edinburgh and London. 270 pp., 33 figs. A4610.25. ‘This book makes no pretence to being comprehensive but endeavours to be a practical and compact book’. The author’s statement sets the scene for a repeat performance of previous editions which have proved so useful to those laboratory workers who required a laboratory manual which supplied the basic principles of histotechnology. The fifth edition has been expanded and brought up to date while following the basic format of the fourth (1962). The text is arranged in three parts covering paraffin, frozen and celloidin techniques. Each part covers the systematic approach necessary in producing a completed preparation. Formulae for basic staining solutions are given in a separate section followed by an appendix covering such details as saturation points, salvage techniques, storage of specimens and the explosive behaviour of ammoniacal solutions. A list of suppliers is given in the final appendix. There are now many textbooks available which successfully cover the specific needs of this subject to the point of supplying a series of techniques capable of demonstrating various histological and pathological features. In a subject struggling to become a science this cookbook approach still has its place. This book continues to fill this requirement and in so doing omits the histochemical approach. It will be less useful to those requiring both theory and practice in a single textbook. The book is a worthy successor to earlier volumes and can be recommended for routine pathology laboratory use and ‘provided the techniques are carefully carried out, anyone with average technical ability should be able to prepare reasonably good histological sections’.
B. Munro Pathology of Turnours of the Oral Tissues, 2nd Edition, R. B. Lucas. 1972. Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh. 386 pp., 123 figs. AS23.10. Professor R. B. Lucas, Pathologist at the Royal Dental Hospital of London, has aimed to produce a book for diagnostic surgical pathologists who are interested in dental and oral pathology. He has done an excellent job. The book is copiously illustrated with good quality black and white pictures, most figures consisting of three or more photomicrographs. The text is informative and well written whilst references are numerous and generally up to date. Of the 34 chapters, those dealing with the taxonomy of oral tumours, tumours of dental tissues, tumours of debatable dental origin, and cysts of oral tissues will be extremely helpful for the practising pathologist, particularly if he only sees a small amount of dental and oral pathology. Rare lesions, such as the calcifying epithelial odontogenic tumour, calcifying odontogenic cyst, pigmented tumour of the jaw of infants, ameloblastic fibroma, the odontomes and other odontogenic tumours are also described and discussed in an authoritative and informative manner. Fifteen chapters are allotted to primary tumours of the jaws and soft tissues of nondental origin; dysplasias of bone are dealt with in 3 chapters, and for good measure, there is a 46-page chapter on salivary gland tumours. The chapters devoted to tumours of tissues which are nat exclusively in the realm of dental and oral pathology are naturally not as erudite as some of the recent publications dealing exclusively with those specialized fields. For example, tumours of lymphoid tissue are discussed under the headings, follicular lymphoma, lymphosarcoma,
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reticulum cell sarcoma and Hodgkin’s disease, while, in the chapter on tumours of neural tissue, the histological features distinguishing neurilemmomas from neurofibromas are not clearly laid down. These, however, are of minor importance and do little to detract from a book which should have a place in the library of all surgical pathologists. P. W. Allen