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Paediatric Respiratory Disease
Book Review similar descriptive form elsewhere. Line diagrams and tables supplement the text and the radiographs usually illustrate the point at issue. There are few typographical errors apart from the legends to the figures in radioisotope imaging which utterly perplexed me. Dr Grange who draws attention to the full version of Chlamydozoaceae, will be pleased to find it spelt correctly! The index is comprehensive but the references suggest that several of the chapters were assembled at least 2 years before the publication date of 198 1. Little reference is made to blood gases throughout the book and even in Denison’s highly individual and fundamental account of lung physiology discussion of the blood gases is limited to determinations on exercise. The technology of sleep studies will doubtless appear in future editions and the clinical relevance of the biochemistry section by Geddes will evolve as this exciting nonrespiratory function of the lung develops. There is much in this book for junior staff in training who will find the price acceptable. General physicians with or without a special interest in thoracic medicine will find some of the chapters useful, original and appealing. I look forward to the second edition. C. C. Evans Paediatric
Respiratory
Edited Courvreur
by Jacques & Guy Tournier
Disease Gerbeaux,
Chichester: John Wiley & edition. Pp. 939. Price X70.00
Sons.
Jacques 1982.
2nd
NOW that paediatrics like the medicine of adults is tending to disintegrate into subspecialties it is inevitable with publishers apparently chasing new titles that we should be offered a number of books dealing with organ system disease in children; the intention one hopes being that the general paediatrician will be able to use the specialized knowledge collected by experts in his day to day practice. In this context the publication of a French textbook devoted to respiratory disease in children is to be welcomed on the grounds that French habits of thought are peculiarly well suited to the marshalling of received information in textbook form as your reviewer discovered when a medical student. The only pity is that most of us are not now well enough educated to read such work in the original language.
The text edited by Messrs Gerbeaux, Courvreur and Tournier proves on reading to have been more than adequately translated by Edward Cooper of Leeds and in its almost 1000 well printed pages to cover with clarity and in detail practically every respiratory disease about which the puzzled or interested paediatrician may need to reinforce his working know-how, though it should be said that it was probably a mistake to include a not very adequate chapter on medical causes of neonatal distress which is well dealt with in other books. There are in all 18 chapters which cover anatomy, physiology, signs and symptoms, methods of investigation, diseases of the respiratory tract from the nose and sinuses down, disorders of ventilation and circulation, asthma, the pleura and mediastinum, and those respiratory disorders that complicated more generalized diseases with a technical addendum describing such procedures as tracheostomy, physiotherapy etc. The radiological illustrations are of general high quality clearly showing what they illustrate with the help ofdiagrams in many cases; full lists of references are provided ranging across the world literature in contrast to so many American books in which European contributions are seldom cited: and the index is adequate when one is searching for something about a rare condition. We are always given something more than the that of standard textbook’s description, whooping cough being a good example; and compared with standard English texts the description of, for instance, primary tuberculosis and its complications is particularly well done and likely to re-educate the occasional reader. However, there are some weaknesses: for instance the section on cystic fibrosis is surprisingly brief and not a text that one would recommend to a colleague in adult medicine wanting to understand a condition which increasingly will come to occupy the time and attention of chest physicians: indeed even the name used is misleading unless we accept the concept that cystic fibrosis is due basically to mucoviscidosis but these are relatively minor cavils and overall the book is recommended as a definitive text likely to be ofhelp when consulted about rare and debatable diseases and even worth reading through on a very long journey bit by bit though only rich men and reviewers will be able to afford their own copy. John
A. Davis
Respiratory
Edited Courvreur
by Jacques & Guy Tournier
Disease Gerbeaux,
Chichester: John Wiley & edition. Pp. 939. Price X70.00
Sons.
Jacques 1982.
2nd
NOW that paediatrics like the medicine of adults is tending to disintegrate into subspecialties it is inevitable with publishers apparently chasing new titles that we should be offered a number of books dealing with organ system disease in children; the intention one hopes being that the general paediatrician will be able to use the specialized knowledge collected by experts in his day to day practice. In this context the publication of a French textbook devoted to respiratory disease in children is to be welcomed on the grounds that French habits of thought are peculiarly well suited to the marshalling of received information in textbook form as your reviewer discovered when a medical student. The only pity is that most of us are not now well enough educated to read such work in the original language.
The text edited by Messrs Gerbeaux, Courvreur and Tournier proves on reading to have been more than adequately translated by Edward Cooper of Leeds and in its almost 1000 well printed pages to cover with clarity and in detail practically every respiratory disease about which the puzzled or interested paediatrician may need to reinforce his working know-how, though it should be said that it was probably a mistake to include a not very adequate chapter on medical causes of neonatal distress which is well dealt with in other books. There are in all 18 chapters which cover anatomy, physiology, signs and symptoms, methods of investigation, diseases of the respiratory tract from the nose and sinuses down, disorders of ventilation and circulation, asthma, the pleura and mediastinum, and those respiratory disorders that complicated more generalized diseases with a technical addendum describing such procedures as tracheostomy, physiotherapy etc. The radiological illustrations are of general high quality clearly showing what they illustrate with the help ofdiagrams in many cases; full lists of references are provided ranging across the world literature in contrast to so many American books in which European contributions are seldom cited: and the index is adequate when one is searching for something about a rare condition. We are always given something more than the that of standard textbook’s description, whooping cough being a good example; and compared with standard English texts the description of, for instance, primary tuberculosis and its complications is particularly well done and likely to re-educate the occasional reader. However, there are some weaknesses: for instance the section on cystic fibrosis is surprisingly brief and not a text that one would recommend to a colleague in adult medicine wanting to understand a condition which increasingly will come to occupy the time and attention of chest physicians: indeed even the name used is misleading unless we accept the concept that cystic fibrosis is due basically to mucoviscidosis but these are relatively minor cavils and overall the book is recommended as a definitive text likely to be ofhelp when consulted about rare and debatable diseases and even worth reading through on a very long journey bit by bit though only rich men and reviewers will be able to afford their own copy. John
A. Davis