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1973 Year book of plastic and reconstructive surgery
BOOK
REVIEWS
Cleft Lip and Palate. By R. B. Ross and M. C. JOHNSTON. First Edition. Pp. ix+319 w&tfot32 illustrations. (B a It imore: The Williams & Wilkins Company, 1972.) Price The Sick Children’s Hospital in Toronto is well known as a leading centre for cleft lip and palate surgery and any publication on this subject from there arouses interest. The principal authors of this book are R. B. Ross, who is Chief of Dentistry at the Sick Children’s Hospital, and a practising orthodontist, and M. C. Johnston, who is a geneticist with a background of dentistry and embryology. The major part of the book is concerned with the genetics and embryogenesis of cleft lip and palate deformities and with the consequent disturbances of facial growth, both in the pre and post natal periods. The Authors give an extensive review of present knowledge and theories of these aspects. This section does not make easy reading because of the great number of different views which are discussed, but it wiil be of great value to surgeons as a source of information and there are many references in the text. The chapter on Dental Problems and their Management is more clinical and practical and is clearly a more personal account of the methods of treatment in use at the Hospital. Conservative dentistry and orthodontics are discussed in detail, but there is very little about the surgical treatment of maxillary deformitv. This section is exceotionallv well illustrated. There is a chapter by w‘. K. Lindsay on the Surgery of Cleft Lip and Palate deformities and by M. 0. Hamlen on Speech Therapy. These are well written, short accounts of these aspects of treatment and to some extent, therefore, make the book a complete survey of lip and palate problems. There is not, however, enough detail in the section of Surgery for this chapter to be of great value to surgeons and in the same way, the chapter on Speech Therapy will not be of great value to speech therapists. I. F. K. MUIR
Surgery of Repair as Applied to Hand Injuries. By B. K. RANK, A. R. WAKEFIELD and J. T. HUESTON. Fourth Edition. Pp. xv+390 with 310 illustrations. (Edinburgh and London: Churchill Livingstone, 1973.) Price E4.00. This edition shows no major changes from the previous edition published five years ago. It remains the best text in the field with its virtues, in particular its strongly didactic approach still there. Since its first edition it has increased in length by more than 25 per cent. In 1953, when it first appeared, what marked it as unique was the spare, meaty text, but the changes with each edition have largely been by accretion and the meat is in danger of being lost in the middle-age spread which afflicts books with the passage of time and editions. If its pre-eminence is not to be lost it requires ruthless pruning plus a willingness to incorporate advances in hand surgery which have become generally accepted in other countries. I. A. MCGREGOR
1973
Year Book of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Edited by K. L. STEPHENSON, R. 0. DINGMAN, J. C. GAISFORD,B. W. HAYNES,R. J. HOEHN, F. J. MCCOY, G. RICKETSON. Pp. 352 with I 1-j illustrations. Published by Year Book Medical Publishers, Chicago, 1973. Price L8.75.
I find this book almost as hard to review as I found it to read. Of course, no one in his right mind-other than a reviewer, or somebody desperately trying to get his full money’s worth-would attempt to read such a book straight through. Acute mental indigestion is only to be expected from such a surfeit of facts jammed into highly concentrated abstracts. The Year Book volumes are, of course, intended mainly for reference. In the book under review, virtually all the important articles related to Elastic Surgery published in the year up to July 1972 are to be found in abstract form. Not surprisingly North America and Europe have supplied most of the original articles from which the abstracts were made, but South America, South Africa and Australasia are also represented. The authors are to be warmly congratulated on their achievement, at the same time one marvels at the vast amount of work that must have gone into the production. The book is wide open to casual sniping from as many angles as an off-duty soldier in a Londonderry street. Surely the quibbles about leaving out such an such and article, putting in so and so, the necessarily somewhat abbreviated phraseology, unhelpful diagrams and so on are out of place. Is the book useful ? The only answer is an unqualified “yes”. It is a handy reference guide to published literature in Plastic Surgery and much lighter and easier to use than the Cumulative Index Medicus. Could it be improved ? Surely yes. Naturally one’s first instinct is to look up articles of particular interest to oneself. Having 112
BOOK
[I_?
REVIEWS
done this, one finds that nearly every time one would have to turn to the original article if intending to In other words many of the abstracts describing techniques were too short try the procedure described. Several times I was unable to understand the details of an operative technique to be really helpful. On the other hand many even after the third reading, and this again was due to excessive abbreviation. of the abstracts of papers surveying results rather than describing techniques are excellent and helpful summaries, although the facts they contain are perhaps more difficult to assimilate in the concentrated form than when diluted in the original article. The book would be more helpful if the majority of the abstracts were shortened to only a few sentences -perhaps with a star grading to show how important the editors thought the particular articles to l>e and the top twenty per cent or so given much fuller treatment than at present. Naturally The book is produced to a high standard and reproduction of the photographs is excellent. Would I personally buy it. > No, but I would want to be sure that it was this is reflected in the price. in my Hospital Library, firmly labelled “NOT TO BE REMOVED FROM THIS ROOM.” J. R. COBBETT
REVIEWS
Cleft Lip and Palate. By R. B. Ross and M. C. JOHNSTON. First Edition. Pp. ix+319 w&tfot32 illustrations. (B a It imore: The Williams & Wilkins Company, 1972.) Price The Sick Children’s Hospital in Toronto is well known as a leading centre for cleft lip and palate surgery and any publication on this subject from there arouses interest. The principal authors of this book are R. B. Ross, who is Chief of Dentistry at the Sick Children’s Hospital, and a practising orthodontist, and M. C. Johnston, who is a geneticist with a background of dentistry and embryology. The major part of the book is concerned with the genetics and embryogenesis of cleft lip and palate deformities and with the consequent disturbances of facial growth, both in the pre and post natal periods. The Authors give an extensive review of present knowledge and theories of these aspects. This section does not make easy reading because of the great number of different views which are discussed, but it wiil be of great value to surgeons as a source of information and there are many references in the text. The chapter on Dental Problems and their Management is more clinical and practical and is clearly a more personal account of the methods of treatment in use at the Hospital. Conservative dentistry and orthodontics are discussed in detail, but there is very little about the surgical treatment of maxillary deformitv. This section is exceotionallv well illustrated. There is a chapter by w‘. K. Lindsay on the Surgery of Cleft Lip and Palate deformities and by M. 0. Hamlen on Speech Therapy. These are well written, short accounts of these aspects of treatment and to some extent, therefore, make the book a complete survey of lip and palate problems. There is not, however, enough detail in the section of Surgery for this chapter to be of great value to surgeons and in the same way, the chapter on Speech Therapy will not be of great value to speech therapists. I. F. K. MUIR
Surgery of Repair as Applied to Hand Injuries. By B. K. RANK, A. R. WAKEFIELD and J. T. HUESTON. Fourth Edition. Pp. xv+390 with 310 illustrations. (Edinburgh and London: Churchill Livingstone, 1973.) Price E4.00. This edition shows no major changes from the previous edition published five years ago. It remains the best text in the field with its virtues, in particular its strongly didactic approach still there. Since its first edition it has increased in length by more than 25 per cent. In 1953, when it first appeared, what marked it as unique was the spare, meaty text, but the changes with each edition have largely been by accretion and the meat is in danger of being lost in the middle-age spread which afflicts books with the passage of time and editions. If its pre-eminence is not to be lost it requires ruthless pruning plus a willingness to incorporate advances in hand surgery which have become generally accepted in other countries. I. A. MCGREGOR
1973
Year Book of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Edited by K. L. STEPHENSON, R. 0. DINGMAN, J. C. GAISFORD,B. W. HAYNES,R. J. HOEHN, F. J. MCCOY, G. RICKETSON. Pp. 352 with I 1-j illustrations. Published by Year Book Medical Publishers, Chicago, 1973. Price L8.75.
I find this book almost as hard to review as I found it to read. Of course, no one in his right mind-other than a reviewer, or somebody desperately trying to get his full money’s worth-would attempt to read such a book straight through. Acute mental indigestion is only to be expected from such a surfeit of facts jammed into highly concentrated abstracts. The Year Book volumes are, of course, intended mainly for reference. In the book under review, virtually all the important articles related to Elastic Surgery published in the year up to July 1972 are to be found in abstract form. Not surprisingly North America and Europe have supplied most of the original articles from which the abstracts were made, but South America, South Africa and Australasia are also represented. The authors are to be warmly congratulated on their achievement, at the same time one marvels at the vast amount of work that must have gone into the production. The book is wide open to casual sniping from as many angles as an off-duty soldier in a Londonderry street. Surely the quibbles about leaving out such an such and article, putting in so and so, the necessarily somewhat abbreviated phraseology, unhelpful diagrams and so on are out of place. Is the book useful ? The only answer is an unqualified “yes”. It is a handy reference guide to published literature in Plastic Surgery and much lighter and easier to use than the Cumulative Index Medicus. Could it be improved ? Surely yes. Naturally one’s first instinct is to look up articles of particular interest to oneself. Having 112
BOOK
[I_?
REVIEWS
done this, one finds that nearly every time one would have to turn to the original article if intending to In other words many of the abstracts describing techniques were too short try the procedure described. Several times I was unable to understand the details of an operative technique to be really helpful. On the other hand many even after the third reading, and this again was due to excessive abbreviation. of the abstracts of papers surveying results rather than describing techniques are excellent and helpful summaries, although the facts they contain are perhaps more difficult to assimilate in the concentrated form than when diluted in the original article. The book would be more helpful if the majority of the abstracts were shortened to only a few sentences -perhaps with a star grading to show how important the editors thought the particular articles to l>e and the top twenty per cent or so given much fuller treatment than at present. Naturally The book is produced to a high standard and reproduction of the photographs is excellent. Would I personally buy it. > No, but I would want to be sure that it was this is reflected in the price. in my Hospital Library, firmly labelled “NOT TO BE REMOVED FROM THIS ROOM.” J. R. COBBETT