- Email: [email protected]
ESSENTIALS OF PUBLIC HEALTH
376
AMERICAN COLLEGE OF CHEST PHYSICIANS
sept.• 1949
Book Reviews ESSENTIALS OF PUBLIC HEALTH. By William P. Shepard, B.S., M.D, M.A. With the collaboration of Charles Edward Smith, M.D., D.P.H., Rodney Rau Beard, M.D., M.P.H. and Leon Benedict Reynolds, A.B., SC.D. With a foreword by Ray Lyman Wilbur, M.D., L.L.D., Sc.D. 600 pages. Cloth. J . B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1948. This book of 600 pages is Intended for the physician engaged in private practice, the medical student and members of all1ed professions. It contains much fine material of value to physicians in diseases of the chest. For example, among the food -borne diseases are amoebic dysentary, brucellosis, tularemia, tuberculosis, scarlet fever, trichinosis, influenza and colds ; also diseases transmitted by Insects and rodents like the rickettsial diseases, particularly Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia, bubonic plague and trichinosis, all of which may cause chest lesions. In the section on occupational health, attention is called to the fact that the average number of days absent from illness per person per year is about eight for males and 12 for females. Respiratory diseases ordinarily account for about 65 per cent of all absences due to illness among men, colds and cough making up nearly half of them, influenza nearly a fourth, laryngitis, tonsillltis and bronchitis about a fifth. Sil1costs and asbestosis are discussed, with particular reference to prevention. About 45 pages are devoted to tuberculosis with emphasis on preventive measures that have been so successfully employed in the past. It is pointed out that if the mortality rates of 1900 had continued to the present, nearly one-third of a million more persons In the United States would die each year from this disease than at present. This is an excellent book by one of America's foremost authorities on public health. Physicians In diseases of the chest everywhere w1ll find it of true value In solving many problems.
SURGICAL EXTRAPLEURAL PNEUMOTHORAX by Donato G. Alarcon, Imprenta Universitaria, Mexico, 1948. No one In the Western Hemisphere has had a greater or a more successful experience with the use of extrapleural pneumothorax than the author. Dr. Alarcon has not only given us the benefit of his own vast experience, but he has assembled data from the German, French, and Spanish literature and has made it available In an English volume. The most valuable service that a reviewer of this book can give is to strongly urge all doctors who make decisions about the program of treatment for the tuberculous sick to become famil1ar with the concepts set forth In this book. There is ample evidence presented to show that we have In the creation of an extrapleural space with air, then later oil f1llIng, an effective method of controlling certain pulmonary lesions. The subject has been so controversial that it is impossible to set forth all the arguments-pro and con-but, if one reads the book or if one visits the Sanatorio San Angel, In Mexico City, it w1ll be perfectly clear why Dr . Alarcon has been able to succeed In restoring health to so many patients with complicated and extensive bilateral forms of tuberculosis by this
AMERICAN COLLEGE OF CHEST PHYSICIANS
sept.• 1949
Book Reviews ESSENTIALS OF PUBLIC HEALTH. By William P. Shepard, B.S., M.D, M.A. With the collaboration of Charles Edward Smith, M.D., D.P.H., Rodney Rau Beard, M.D., M.P.H. and Leon Benedict Reynolds, A.B., SC.D. With a foreword by Ray Lyman Wilbur, M.D., L.L.D., Sc.D. 600 pages. Cloth. J . B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1948. This book of 600 pages is Intended for the physician engaged in private practice, the medical student and members of all1ed professions. It contains much fine material of value to physicians in diseases of the chest. For example, among the food -borne diseases are amoebic dysentary, brucellosis, tularemia, tuberculosis, scarlet fever, trichinosis, influenza and colds ; also diseases transmitted by Insects and rodents like the rickettsial diseases, particularly Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia, bubonic plague and trichinosis, all of which may cause chest lesions. In the section on occupational health, attention is called to the fact that the average number of days absent from illness per person per year is about eight for males and 12 for females. Respiratory diseases ordinarily account for about 65 per cent of all absences due to illness among men, colds and cough making up nearly half of them, influenza nearly a fourth, laryngitis, tonsillltis and bronchitis about a fifth. Sil1costs and asbestosis are discussed, with particular reference to prevention. About 45 pages are devoted to tuberculosis with emphasis on preventive measures that have been so successfully employed in the past. It is pointed out that if the mortality rates of 1900 had continued to the present, nearly one-third of a million more persons In the United States would die each year from this disease than at present. This is an excellent book by one of America's foremost authorities on public health. Physicians In diseases of the chest everywhere w1ll find it of true value In solving many problems.
SURGICAL EXTRAPLEURAL PNEUMOTHORAX by Donato G. Alarcon, Imprenta Universitaria, Mexico, 1948. No one In the Western Hemisphere has had a greater or a more successful experience with the use of extrapleural pneumothorax than the author. Dr. Alarcon has not only given us the benefit of his own vast experience, but he has assembled data from the German, French, and Spanish literature and has made it available In an English volume. The most valuable service that a reviewer of this book can give is to strongly urge all doctors who make decisions about the program of treatment for the tuberculous sick to become famil1ar with the concepts set forth In this book. There is ample evidence presented to show that we have In the creation of an extrapleural space with air, then later oil f1llIng, an effective method of controlling certain pulmonary lesions. The subject has been so controversial that it is impossible to set forth all the arguments-pro and con-but, if one reads the book or if one visits the Sanatorio San Angel, In Mexico City, it w1ll be perfectly clear why Dr . Alarcon has been able to succeed In restoring health to so many patients with complicated and extensive bilateral forms of tuberculosis by this