Decision making in small animal orthopaedic surgery

BOOK REVIEWS

book should also be strongly recommended to veterinary students as it promotes a logical approach to problems in small animal soft tissue surgery . H . R . DENN'

Decision Making in Small Animal Orthopaedic Surgery

Edited by Geoff Sumner-Smith Oxford : Blackwell Scientific Publications . 1988 . 216 pp . £30 . 40 This book is another in the successful 'decision making' mould to come from the Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada . The editor and one of the co-authors is Geoff Sumner-Smith . The other contributers are Allen Binnington, Joanne Cockshutt and Craig Miller from Guelph, Jon and Larry Dee from Florida, and Dieter Prieur from Switzerland . They are all well known figures in the field of veterinary orthopaedics . The book is divided into ten sections covering locomotion, arthroses, fracture management, disorders of the fore limb and hind limb, the spine, cranium, teeth, and musculoskeletal trauma . The tenth section is termed appendices and covers the clinical pathology of synovial fluid and growth plate closure times and features . Orthopaedic surgery is a logical subject and lends itself well to the decision making format used in this book . Each chapter consists of an algorithm, explanatory notes and line drawings . The algorithmic heading may be a symptom (e.g . hip pain) or a clinical sign or a presumptive diagnosis (e .g . acetabular fracture) . Each algorithm flows downwards and ultimately reaches a therapeutic end point . The busy practising veterinary surgeon will find this a very useful book to have close at hand when confronted with orthopaedic problems . The format provides a rapid and logical reference so that the correct diagnostic and therapeutic steps can be taken . The format is also ideal for teaching and the book should be of great value to veterinary students and postgraduates taking further qualifications in veterinary orthopaedics . H . R . Draw

Disinfection in Animal Practice

Q5

Veterinary Practice and Farm

Edited by A . H . Linton, W . B . Hugo & A . D . Russell Oxford : Blackwell Scientific Publications . 1987 . 179 pp . £24 . 50 The first effective control of many diseases was achieved by the use of disinfectants, even though the practices employed were empirical and before the bacteriological causes were discovered . Although first used to control hospital infections, the importance of disinfection for the control of animal diseases was recognized and consequently many veterinary schools had departments of hygiene . The advent of chemotherapeutic agents and antibiotics appears to have relegated the importance of disinfection and hygiene in the veterinary curriculum and few papers devoted to this topic appear in the recent scientific literature . A number of books are available on the medical aspects but there is none that considers in detail the various facets of the veterinary application of disinfectants ; the subject is usually confined to a chapter of a book on animal housing or husbandry . The housing of large numbers of animals together creates conditions that are conducive to the multiplication and spread of many microorganisms. It has been suggested by Dr Sainsbury that many livestock enterprises are managed on a knife-edge between success and failure with many buildings being too badly built to keep properly clean and to disinfect . With the increasing intensification of livestock production the adequate use of disinfectants is likely to achieve even greater importance and a book devoted to the subject is long overdue . The book has seven chapters, each by a different author(s) but a consistent, readable style is maintained throughout the well setout text . The one area of inconsistency is in the provision of references : some chapters contain numerous references whereas others contain a bare minimum ; yet if the book is to become a standard textbook a more comprehensive bibliography is desirable . A great deal of useful information is presented but specific facts are not always easy to find and the provision of some extra tables would be helpful and allow comparisons to be made more readily . Various aspects of disinfection in farm animal practice are considered in