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La trasposizione dei grossi vasi. Studio radiologico
Book
reviews
DIACXOSIS AND MANAGEMENT OF PAIN. By Bernard E. Finneson, M.D., F.A.C.S., Neurosurgeon, The Episcopal Hospital, Philadelphia. Philadelphia, 1962, W. B. Saunders Company, 261 pages. Price $8.50. This
book on pain is a good and practical one. It is written from the point of view of the neurosurgeon. It includes many simple illustrations concerned with diagnosis, localization, areas of referral, and management. Pain is one of the most common and most annoying symptoms of disease in man. It concerns physicians in every held of medicine. Although this book is not specifically intended for cardiologists, it should interest them greatly, for it is they who are concerned at all times with pain in diagnosis and management. Chest pain has many sources of origin other than the heart and blood vessels. It is the extracardiac types of pain which offer so much difficulty, and which this book is about. Even though one may not agree entirely with all ideas presented, this is a useful, simple, and well-illustrated book.
HEALTH AND FITNESS IN THE MODERK WORLD. A Collection of Papers Presented at the Institute of Normal Human Anatomy, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Rome, Italy. Published by The Athletic Institute in cooperation with The American College of Sports Medicine, 392 pages. Price $4.50. During the Olympic Games in Rome, in 1960, experts in the field of sports medicine, physical education and fitness congregated to exchange their ideas and experiences on the status and concepts of “fitness” in their home countries. Thirty-eight participants from 16 Western and Eastern nations set the stage for scientific discussions by presenting formal papers. These papers were collected in this book as a documentation of world-wide research activities concerned with providing some of the needed facts for the understanding and knowledge of good health and general “physical fitness.” In the present days of awakening concern about man’s waning resistance to the strain and stress of daily life and to emergencies-as a consequence of all the technological progress making human life too comfortable-such understanding becomes essential for organizing adequate countermeasures against the process of decay. Thus, this book should be of special interest to general physicians and to specialists in several medical fields who are not only concerned with acutely effective therapeutic procedures but who are in terms of preventiv-e and re2l.50 thinking habilitative measures of health. The book does not impress as an entity. With the involvement of so many contributors-most of them discussing only small sections of their research interests-a well-rounded. informative
719
brochure was not to be expected. However, the material presented and discussed in Rome was so diversified that one area or the other should catch the potential reader’s interest, with favorable or antagonistic reactions. Psychological and educational aspects of physical activities and sports were as expertly covered as were neurophysiologic, cardiorespiratory, and metabolic aspects, in addition to problems of genetics, performance rhythms in sports, or overtraining. Even philosophic considerations of amateurism and sportsmanship in modern sports have come to word. There is a strongly growing trend in the United States to apply tests of functional and metabolic adaptive capacity-tests which have become well established for the assessment of “fitness” in the “normal”-on a variety of patients for a variety of reasons, e.g., for diagnostic purposes, for the evaluation of the effects of certain treatments, for establishing the failure or success of rehabilitation techniques, etc. Every.one who wishes to obtain basic information on “normal” responses to physical work and on the limitations which might separate the poor from the fair, or the excellent from the superior performer, should attempt to read carefully some contributions of authors from Austria, Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States-even if the reading might become severed by language barriers. Undoubtedly, this book has great assets in its favor: it stimulates the thinking about present-day health problems of the “healthy,” evokes here and there justifiable criticism and the urge to collect research facts for a scientific re-battle, and it opens up a few avenues for further research on interesting problems in human biology.
LA TRASPOSIZIONE DEI GROSSI VAX. STUDIO RADIOLOGICO (The Transposition of the Great Vessels). By F. Fossati, F. Barbaccia, and G. Pompili. Turin, 1961, Minerva Medica, 213 pages, 103 illustrations. Price: 6,500 lire ($11.). This
Italian monograph contains a complete review of the problem of transposition of the great vessels. Embryologic and anatomic studies, the clinical picture, and the electrocardiograms and phonocardiograms of the cases are discussed in detail and illustrated by excellent schemes and original graphs. Catheterization data are briefly reported. In the second half of the book, the data obtained in the roentgenologic study. of the clinical cases with and without contrast media are discussed in detail and illustrated by original documents of high quality. The data supplied by roentgenkymography, aortography, and coronary angiography are then presented. In addition, the differential diagnosis and the treatment of these cases are discussed in detail. Sixteen personal cases are described at the end of
720
Book reviews
often has no chance to make a thorough clinical studv of the patient, and that therefore the correlation between electrocardiographic and clinical findings must be made by the clinician. The purpose of this book is to make such a correlation easier. It presupposes familiarity with the basic principles of electrocardiography and, therefore, rather than supplant existing textbooks, it supplements them. However, to sax-e the reader the trouble of repeated reference to a textbook, the most important electrocardiographic patterns are described in small print, and these descriptions are referred to by page number throughout the text and in the alphabetical index. The legends to the numerous illustrations contain a description of the corresponding electrocardiographic and clinical findings, and the illustrations can be used for practice in the application of the diagnostic rules developed in the text. After introductory remarks are made on the leads necessary in different clinical conditions and the sequence of electrocardiographic anaiysis, the clinical conditions which may be responsible for certain electrocardiographic patterns are discussed. Among these are axis deviation, Pwave patterns, changes of P-R and QRS duration, S-T displacement, T-wave patterns, Q-T duration, and the U wave, as well as artifacts. Finally, the differential diagnosis of bradycardia, tachycardia, and the arrhythmias is discussed. The short bibliography lists textbooks and some of the most important recent papers. Because of its clear and systematic arrangement the book will be very useful for everyone who must e\-aluate electrocardiograms or electrocardiographic findings from a clinical point of view. The illustrations contain many unusual ant1 interesting cases even for the advanced cardiologist.
the book, with detailed protocols and reports of catheterization, as well as of other laboratory data. The bibliography includes 309 items. The quality of presentation and the editorial aspects of this book are first class. It is recommended to cardiologists and roentgenologists.
HANDBOOK OF PHYSIOLOGY (Section 2, Circulation, Volume I). Section editor, W. F. Hamilton; Executive editor, Philip Dow. Washington, D. C., 1962, American Physiological Society, 7.58 pages. Price $24. This
is Volume I of Section 2 on the circulation, part of a new series of volumes to constitute a Handbook of Physiology. Experts in the field have written the respective chapters concerned with research on the circulation: blood volume, physical equilibria of the heart and blood vessels, rheology of blood, electrocardiography, control of function of the heart, circulation time, heart sound, and other aspects of the circulation. This is a good volume, but, unfortunately, the chapters are too brief. The authors have been highly selective in quoting from the literature, and no chapter is adequate nor is the literature reviewed sufficiently. The subjects are presented primarily from the author’s own point of view. The reader must bear this in mind for it is certain that these chapters will be quoted extensively in the future. Even though a complete presentation is impossible, this volume will find itself among the many complete volumes of the Handbook, and perhaps because of this it will give the impression of a thorough presentation of the subject; this will be found to be untrue. The discussions do not and cannot include a thorough review of the problems as related to pathologic states. Nevertheless, if the lack of completeness and the more or less limited points of view in some instances are kept in mind, this volume is a good one and will be useful to students, physiologists, researchers, teachers, and physicians. The two editors have performed a good service in view of the restrictions in pages available for each chapter. This is a useful contribution.
DIFFEKENTIALDIAGNOSEDEKHERZSTROMKURVE (Differential Diagnosis of the Electrocardiogram). By Priv. Doz. Dr. Gernot Friese, Medizinische Universitgtsklinik, Heidelberg. Berlin, 1961, Springer Verlag, 182 pages, 169 figures. Price: DM 29.80. The
author has been director of the electrocardiographic laboratory of the University Hospital in Heidelberg for more than ten years, and has incorporated into this book some of the contents of his lectures on electrocardiography to staff members of this Hospital. K. Matthes, Director of the Department of Medicine of this Hospital, emphasizes in the foreword to this book that because of increasing specialization the person making an electrocardiographic interpretation
PHYSICAL DIAGKOSES. By Ralph H. Major, M.D., Professor of Medicine and of the History of Meditine, University of Kansas; and Mahlon H. Delp, M.D., Professor of Medicine, UniT-ersity of Kansas. Philadelphia, 1962, W. B. Saunders Company, 355 pages. Price $7.50. An
introductory textbook to physical diagnosis in medicine cannot hope to represent a complete document. If all the known physical signs were related to their respecti\-e physical causes, a very lengthy dissertation would result and would defeat the purpose of an introductory text. Dr. Major recognized this principle in the introduction to his first edition of Physic-al Diaposis. The sixth edition of the book adheres to this precept, with the exception one brief but distracting discussion of thyroid physiology. The material is artificially inserted into the otherwise unchanged text of the preceding edition; it is recognized readily because of the interrupted presentation of eye signs in thyroid disease and deviation from the intention to avoid complex presentations of physiology. The fundamentals of cardiac auscultation have been extensively revised within the limitations just described.
reviews
DIACXOSIS AND MANAGEMENT OF PAIN. By Bernard E. Finneson, M.D., F.A.C.S., Neurosurgeon, The Episcopal Hospital, Philadelphia. Philadelphia, 1962, W. B. Saunders Company, 261 pages. Price $8.50. This
book on pain is a good and practical one. It is written from the point of view of the neurosurgeon. It includes many simple illustrations concerned with diagnosis, localization, areas of referral, and management. Pain is one of the most common and most annoying symptoms of disease in man. It concerns physicians in every held of medicine. Although this book is not specifically intended for cardiologists, it should interest them greatly, for it is they who are concerned at all times with pain in diagnosis and management. Chest pain has many sources of origin other than the heart and blood vessels. It is the extracardiac types of pain which offer so much difficulty, and which this book is about. Even though one may not agree entirely with all ideas presented, this is a useful, simple, and well-illustrated book.
HEALTH AND FITNESS IN THE MODERK WORLD. A Collection of Papers Presented at the Institute of Normal Human Anatomy, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Rome, Italy. Published by The Athletic Institute in cooperation with The American College of Sports Medicine, 392 pages. Price $4.50. During the Olympic Games in Rome, in 1960, experts in the field of sports medicine, physical education and fitness congregated to exchange their ideas and experiences on the status and concepts of “fitness” in their home countries. Thirty-eight participants from 16 Western and Eastern nations set the stage for scientific discussions by presenting formal papers. These papers were collected in this book as a documentation of world-wide research activities concerned with providing some of the needed facts for the understanding and knowledge of good health and general “physical fitness.” In the present days of awakening concern about man’s waning resistance to the strain and stress of daily life and to emergencies-as a consequence of all the technological progress making human life too comfortable-such understanding becomes essential for organizing adequate countermeasures against the process of decay. Thus, this book should be of special interest to general physicians and to specialists in several medical fields who are not only concerned with acutely effective therapeutic procedures but who are in terms of preventiv-e and re2l.50 thinking habilitative measures of health. The book does not impress as an entity. With the involvement of so many contributors-most of them discussing only small sections of their research interests-a well-rounded. informative
719
brochure was not to be expected. However, the material presented and discussed in Rome was so diversified that one area or the other should catch the potential reader’s interest, with favorable or antagonistic reactions. Psychological and educational aspects of physical activities and sports were as expertly covered as were neurophysiologic, cardiorespiratory, and metabolic aspects, in addition to problems of genetics, performance rhythms in sports, or overtraining. Even philosophic considerations of amateurism and sportsmanship in modern sports have come to word. There is a strongly growing trend in the United States to apply tests of functional and metabolic adaptive capacity-tests which have become well established for the assessment of “fitness” in the “normal”-on a variety of patients for a variety of reasons, e.g., for diagnostic purposes, for the evaluation of the effects of certain treatments, for establishing the failure or success of rehabilitation techniques, etc. Every.one who wishes to obtain basic information on “normal” responses to physical work and on the limitations which might separate the poor from the fair, or the excellent from the superior performer, should attempt to read carefully some contributions of authors from Austria, Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States-even if the reading might become severed by language barriers. Undoubtedly, this book has great assets in its favor: it stimulates the thinking about present-day health problems of the “healthy,” evokes here and there justifiable criticism and the urge to collect research facts for a scientific re-battle, and it opens up a few avenues for further research on interesting problems in human biology.
LA TRASPOSIZIONE DEI GROSSI VAX. STUDIO RADIOLOGICO (The Transposition of the Great Vessels). By F. Fossati, F. Barbaccia, and G. Pompili. Turin, 1961, Minerva Medica, 213 pages, 103 illustrations. Price: 6,500 lire ($11.). This
Italian monograph contains a complete review of the problem of transposition of the great vessels. Embryologic and anatomic studies, the clinical picture, and the electrocardiograms and phonocardiograms of the cases are discussed in detail and illustrated by excellent schemes and original graphs. Catheterization data are briefly reported. In the second half of the book, the data obtained in the roentgenologic study. of the clinical cases with and without contrast media are discussed in detail and illustrated by original documents of high quality. The data supplied by roentgenkymography, aortography, and coronary angiography are then presented. In addition, the differential diagnosis and the treatment of these cases are discussed in detail. Sixteen personal cases are described at the end of
720
Book reviews
often has no chance to make a thorough clinical studv of the patient, and that therefore the correlation between electrocardiographic and clinical findings must be made by the clinician. The purpose of this book is to make such a correlation easier. It presupposes familiarity with the basic principles of electrocardiography and, therefore, rather than supplant existing textbooks, it supplements them. However, to sax-e the reader the trouble of repeated reference to a textbook, the most important electrocardiographic patterns are described in small print, and these descriptions are referred to by page number throughout the text and in the alphabetical index. The legends to the numerous illustrations contain a description of the corresponding electrocardiographic and clinical findings, and the illustrations can be used for practice in the application of the diagnostic rules developed in the text. After introductory remarks are made on the leads necessary in different clinical conditions and the sequence of electrocardiographic anaiysis, the clinical conditions which may be responsible for certain electrocardiographic patterns are discussed. Among these are axis deviation, Pwave patterns, changes of P-R and QRS duration, S-T displacement, T-wave patterns, Q-T duration, and the U wave, as well as artifacts. Finally, the differential diagnosis of bradycardia, tachycardia, and the arrhythmias is discussed. The short bibliography lists textbooks and some of the most important recent papers. Because of its clear and systematic arrangement the book will be very useful for everyone who must e\-aluate electrocardiograms or electrocardiographic findings from a clinical point of view. The illustrations contain many unusual ant1 interesting cases even for the advanced cardiologist.
the book, with detailed protocols and reports of catheterization, as well as of other laboratory data. The bibliography includes 309 items. The quality of presentation and the editorial aspects of this book are first class. It is recommended to cardiologists and roentgenologists.
HANDBOOK OF PHYSIOLOGY (Section 2, Circulation, Volume I). Section editor, W. F. Hamilton; Executive editor, Philip Dow. Washington, D. C., 1962, American Physiological Society, 7.58 pages. Price $24. This
is Volume I of Section 2 on the circulation, part of a new series of volumes to constitute a Handbook of Physiology. Experts in the field have written the respective chapters concerned with research on the circulation: blood volume, physical equilibria of the heart and blood vessels, rheology of blood, electrocardiography, control of function of the heart, circulation time, heart sound, and other aspects of the circulation. This is a good volume, but, unfortunately, the chapters are too brief. The authors have been highly selective in quoting from the literature, and no chapter is adequate nor is the literature reviewed sufficiently. The subjects are presented primarily from the author’s own point of view. The reader must bear this in mind for it is certain that these chapters will be quoted extensively in the future. Even though a complete presentation is impossible, this volume will find itself among the many complete volumes of the Handbook, and perhaps because of this it will give the impression of a thorough presentation of the subject; this will be found to be untrue. The discussions do not and cannot include a thorough review of the problems as related to pathologic states. Nevertheless, if the lack of completeness and the more or less limited points of view in some instances are kept in mind, this volume is a good one and will be useful to students, physiologists, researchers, teachers, and physicians. The two editors have performed a good service in view of the restrictions in pages available for each chapter. This is a useful contribution.
DIFFEKENTIALDIAGNOSEDEKHERZSTROMKURVE (Differential Diagnosis of the Electrocardiogram). By Priv. Doz. Dr. Gernot Friese, Medizinische Universitgtsklinik, Heidelberg. Berlin, 1961, Springer Verlag, 182 pages, 169 figures. Price: DM 29.80. The
author has been director of the electrocardiographic laboratory of the University Hospital in Heidelberg for more than ten years, and has incorporated into this book some of the contents of his lectures on electrocardiography to staff members of this Hospital. K. Matthes, Director of the Department of Medicine of this Hospital, emphasizes in the foreword to this book that because of increasing specialization the person making an electrocardiographic interpretation
PHYSICAL DIAGKOSES. By Ralph H. Major, M.D., Professor of Medicine and of the History of Meditine, University of Kansas; and Mahlon H. Delp, M.D., Professor of Medicine, UniT-ersity of Kansas. Philadelphia, 1962, W. B. Saunders Company, 355 pages. Price $7.50. An
introductory textbook to physical diagnosis in medicine cannot hope to represent a complete document. If all the known physical signs were related to their respecti\-e physical causes, a very lengthy dissertation would result and would defeat the purpose of an introductory text. Dr. Major recognized this principle in the introduction to his first edition of Physic-al Diaposis. The sixth edition of the book adheres to this precept, with the exception one brief but distracting discussion of thyroid physiology. The material is artificially inserted into the otherwise unchanged text of the preceding edition; it is recognized readily because of the interrupted presentation of eye signs in thyroid disease and deviation from the intention to avoid complex presentations of physiology. The fundamentals of cardiac auscultation have been extensively revised within the limitations just described.