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“PDRs Desk Reference, 1991, ed. 45
BOOK REVIEWS Edited by H. Stanley Thompson, M.D.
overwhelming quantities. The POR is still a single volume but it seems to get bigger every year. Because it is published "with the cooperation of the manufacturers whose products appear in it, the POR stays even-handed by reproducing, word for word, the product descriptions prepared, edited, and approved by the manufacturer for the official package inserts, and then providing the reader with various search strategies. The AMA OE is now in a sturdy loose-leaf format, and it is arranged by disease categories into 88 chapters: the cardiovascular drugs are in one section and the ophthalmologic drugs in another section. The various drugs available to treat a given condition are covered in the same chapter and can be readily compared. The USP 01 is the biggest of the three. Volume I is an encyclopedic compendium of prescription drugs arranged alphabetically by generic name. The 25 pages of color illustrations of pills and capsules are arranged alphabetically, so that, for example, five different sets of amitriptyline tablets in various sizes can be seen side by side. This format has its pros and cons: if you have an orange pill in your hand, and all you know about it is that it says "MSO 697" on the side of the pill, it is hard to find out what the pill is until you look up MSO 697 in a nearby table and find that it is Dolobid 500 mg. But there is no Dolobid in the illustration pages, so you don't get visual confirmation until you look up Dolobid in another section and find that it is Diflunisal. A four-color illustration of Diflunisal is available. However, if you are holding a purple tablet with "GG" or "RUGBY" on it, the USP 01 illustrations will eventually show that it is amitriptyline, 75 mg, generic, but the POR will leave you completely at sea. Taken together, the POR, USP 01, and the AMA OE weigh 42 pounds. This is bad for the trees, bad for the landfills, and very inefficient. I hope that in a few years, following the lead of the POR publications, we will be able to switch over completely to a machine-readable database. It might then be possible, by responding to various prompts, for a physician to ask the database some specific questions, such as: "What drug should I use to treat hypertension in a 42-year-old patient who is in the third
"USP 01" Drug Information, 1991, ed. 11. Published in the United States Pharmacopeial Convention, 12601 Twinbook Parkway, Rockville, Maryland. Three softcover books, boxed, 4,946 pages, including subscription to 12 monthly updates, $130. Students with valid identification get a 40% discount. Volumes are also sold separately, with the updates: Volume I (two books), Drug Information for the Health Care Professional, 3,304 pages, $110. Volume II (one book), Advice for the Patient (Drug Information in Lay Language), 1,642 pages, $42.
"AMA DE" Drug Evaluations, Subscription, 1991. Published by the American Medical Association, 515 North State Street, Chicago, Illinois. Three loose-leaf binders in a slipcase. Updated quarterly with new pages and a newsletter, $116 to AMA members. $145 to nonmembers. Also available in a single annual volume (no updates) for $75 to members and $95 to nonmembers.
"PDR" Physician's Desk Reference, 1991, ed. 45. Published by Medical Economics Company, Inc., Oradell, New Jersey. A single annual volume, 2,496 pages. Sent free to physicians; additional copies available for $49.95. The same group also publishes the following: PDR for Ophthalmology, $37.95; Drug Interactions and Side Effects Index, $34.95; Indications Index, $19.95; and others. The full text of all PDR publications is available on a CD-ROM (MSDOS) for $595. All the dosage, contraindicatlons, and warning information in the PDR isavailable (verbatim) in a palm-size computer for $249.
Reviewed by H. Stanley Thompson
Iowa City, Iowa
As every physician knows, there is drug information everywhere, and it keeps arriving in 222
223
Obituary
Vol. 112, No.2
trimester of pregnancy and has congestive heart failure?" Until then, every physician must have access to drug information, and these three organizations are offering us access, each from a slightly different point of view.
The Book List Clinical Procedures in Optometry. By J. Boyd Eskridge, John F. Amos, and Jimmy D. Bartlett. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott, 1991. 808 pages, index, illustrated. $125 Color Atlas of Ophthalmic Surgery: Cataracts. By Richard P. Kratz and H. John Shammas. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott, 1991. 226 pages, index, illustrated. $150 Color Atlas/Text of Ophthalmic Parasitology. By B. H. Kean, Tsieh Sun, and Robert M. Ellsworth. New York, Igaku-Shoin Medical Publishers, Inc., 1991. 233 pages, index, illustrated. $110 Light: Medicine of the Future. By Jacob Liberman. Santa Fe, New Mexico, Bear and Company Publishing, 1991. 251 pages, index, illustrated. $22.95 Neurologic Clinics. Edited by Lenore A. Breen. Philadelphia, W. B. Saunders, 1991. 247 pages, index, illustrated. $79 (per year individual), $94 (per year institution) Vascular Tumors and Malformations of the Ocular Fundus. By J. J. De Laey and M. Hanssens. Netherlands, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990.241 pages, index, illustrated. $121
Obituary C. WILBUR RUCKER, M.D.
1900-1991
Charles Wilbur Rucker, B.S., M.D., M.S., in ophthalmology, consultant in ophthalmology at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota from 1937 until 1967, head of the Department of Ophthalmology from 1949 until 1961, and professor of ophthalmology in the Mayo Graduate
C. Wilbur Rucker, M.D.
1990-1991 School of Medicine, died March 14, 1991, in Rochester, Minnesota. Dr. Rucker was born Jan. 30, 1900, in Goodhue, Minnesota, the son of Elizabeth Olsen Rucker and Charles Edward Rucker. After high school in Red Wing, Minnesota, he attended the University of Minnesota, where he received his B.S. degree in 1922 and his M.D. degree in 1926, after completing a year of internship at Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco. He entered the Mayo Foundation as a fellow in ophthalmology April 1, 1926, and spent 27 months in ophthalmology, three months in experimental surgery, and three months in otolaryngology and rhinology. He attended the University of Minnesota Medical School for six months. He was awarded the M.S. degree in ophthalmology in 1929. After leaving the Mayo Foundation July 1, 1929, he began a private practice in Minneapolis. He was appointed instructor in the University School of Medicine, as ophthalmologist in the Student Health Service, and was on the staff of Northwestern Hospital. In 1937, Dr. Rucker rejoined the Mayo Clinic as consultant in ophthalmology and was ap-
overwhelming quantities. The POR is still a single volume but it seems to get bigger every year. Because it is published "with the cooperation of the manufacturers whose products appear in it, the POR stays even-handed by reproducing, word for word, the product descriptions prepared, edited, and approved by the manufacturer for the official package inserts, and then providing the reader with various search strategies. The AMA OE is now in a sturdy loose-leaf format, and it is arranged by disease categories into 88 chapters: the cardiovascular drugs are in one section and the ophthalmologic drugs in another section. The various drugs available to treat a given condition are covered in the same chapter and can be readily compared. The USP 01 is the biggest of the three. Volume I is an encyclopedic compendium of prescription drugs arranged alphabetically by generic name. The 25 pages of color illustrations of pills and capsules are arranged alphabetically, so that, for example, five different sets of amitriptyline tablets in various sizes can be seen side by side. This format has its pros and cons: if you have an orange pill in your hand, and all you know about it is that it says "MSO 697" on the side of the pill, it is hard to find out what the pill is until you look up MSO 697 in a nearby table and find that it is Dolobid 500 mg. But there is no Dolobid in the illustration pages, so you don't get visual confirmation until you look up Dolobid in another section and find that it is Diflunisal. A four-color illustration of Diflunisal is available. However, if you are holding a purple tablet with "GG" or "RUGBY" on it, the USP 01 illustrations will eventually show that it is amitriptyline, 75 mg, generic, but the POR will leave you completely at sea. Taken together, the POR, USP 01, and the AMA OE weigh 42 pounds. This is bad for the trees, bad for the landfills, and very inefficient. I hope that in a few years, following the lead of the POR publications, we will be able to switch over completely to a machine-readable database. It might then be possible, by responding to various prompts, for a physician to ask the database some specific questions, such as: "What drug should I use to treat hypertension in a 42-year-old patient who is in the third
"USP 01" Drug Information, 1991, ed. 11. Published in the United States Pharmacopeial Convention, 12601 Twinbook Parkway, Rockville, Maryland. Three softcover books, boxed, 4,946 pages, including subscription to 12 monthly updates, $130. Students with valid identification get a 40% discount. Volumes are also sold separately, with the updates: Volume I (two books), Drug Information for the Health Care Professional, 3,304 pages, $110. Volume II (one book), Advice for the Patient (Drug Information in Lay Language), 1,642 pages, $42.
"AMA DE" Drug Evaluations, Subscription, 1991. Published by the American Medical Association, 515 North State Street, Chicago, Illinois. Three loose-leaf binders in a slipcase. Updated quarterly with new pages and a newsletter, $116 to AMA members. $145 to nonmembers. Also available in a single annual volume (no updates) for $75 to members and $95 to nonmembers.
"PDR" Physician's Desk Reference, 1991, ed. 45. Published by Medical Economics Company, Inc., Oradell, New Jersey. A single annual volume, 2,496 pages. Sent free to physicians; additional copies available for $49.95. The same group also publishes the following: PDR for Ophthalmology, $37.95; Drug Interactions and Side Effects Index, $34.95; Indications Index, $19.95; and others. The full text of all PDR publications is available on a CD-ROM (MSDOS) for $595. All the dosage, contraindicatlons, and warning information in the PDR isavailable (verbatim) in a palm-size computer for $249.
Reviewed by H. Stanley Thompson
Iowa City, Iowa
As every physician knows, there is drug information everywhere, and it keeps arriving in 222
223
Obituary
Vol. 112, No.2
trimester of pregnancy and has congestive heart failure?" Until then, every physician must have access to drug information, and these three organizations are offering us access, each from a slightly different point of view.
The Book List Clinical Procedures in Optometry. By J. Boyd Eskridge, John F. Amos, and Jimmy D. Bartlett. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott, 1991. 808 pages, index, illustrated. $125 Color Atlas of Ophthalmic Surgery: Cataracts. By Richard P. Kratz and H. John Shammas. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott, 1991. 226 pages, index, illustrated. $150 Color Atlas/Text of Ophthalmic Parasitology. By B. H. Kean, Tsieh Sun, and Robert M. Ellsworth. New York, Igaku-Shoin Medical Publishers, Inc., 1991. 233 pages, index, illustrated. $110 Light: Medicine of the Future. By Jacob Liberman. Santa Fe, New Mexico, Bear and Company Publishing, 1991. 251 pages, index, illustrated. $22.95 Neurologic Clinics. Edited by Lenore A. Breen. Philadelphia, W. B. Saunders, 1991. 247 pages, index, illustrated. $79 (per year individual), $94 (per year institution) Vascular Tumors and Malformations of the Ocular Fundus. By J. J. De Laey and M. Hanssens. Netherlands, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990.241 pages, index, illustrated. $121
Obituary C. WILBUR RUCKER, M.D.
1900-1991
Charles Wilbur Rucker, B.S., M.D., M.S., in ophthalmology, consultant in ophthalmology at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota from 1937 until 1967, head of the Department of Ophthalmology from 1949 until 1961, and professor of ophthalmology in the Mayo Graduate
C. Wilbur Rucker, M.D.
1990-1991 School of Medicine, died March 14, 1991, in Rochester, Minnesota. Dr. Rucker was born Jan. 30, 1900, in Goodhue, Minnesota, the son of Elizabeth Olsen Rucker and Charles Edward Rucker. After high school in Red Wing, Minnesota, he attended the University of Minnesota, where he received his B.S. degree in 1922 and his M.D. degree in 1926, after completing a year of internship at Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco. He entered the Mayo Foundation as a fellow in ophthalmology April 1, 1926, and spent 27 months in ophthalmology, three months in experimental surgery, and three months in otolaryngology and rhinology. He attended the University of Minnesota Medical School for six months. He was awarded the M.S. degree in ophthalmology in 1929. After leaving the Mayo Foundation July 1, 1929, he began a private practice in Minneapolis. He was appointed instructor in the University School of Medicine, as ophthalmologist in the Student Health Service, and was on the staff of Northwestern Hospital. In 1937, Dr. Rucker rejoined the Mayo Clinic as consultant in ophthalmology and was ap-