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Varicose veins
Book Reviews Taschenbuch der Digitalistherapie (Pocketbook of Digitalis Therapy) by Roland Niedner. Georg Thieme Verlag, Berlin, 1961. (Intercontinental Medical Book Corporation, New fork, $4.20.)
shows the need for improvement and standardization of electrocardiographic interpretation. Simonson believes analysis of the sources of normal variability will improve the diagnostic value of electro~rdiography and establish better values for a normal electrocardiogram. With this idea in mind, he has written a useful book based on a lifetime experience with extensive data obtained from various population groups with varying occupations in many places all over the world. Employing the 95 to 98 per cent ranges determined from calculated percentiles, Simonson set himself the formidable task of using his data statistically to differentiate between normal and abnormal electrocardiograms. In this he succeeds admirably. It is fair to say that Simonson has written an unusual book on the normal electrocardiogram. which becomes more useful with the experience and skill of the efectrocardiographrr. It is not a primer. but a basic book on the subject which raises more questions one that will cause the practiced than it settles; electrocardiographer to pay more attention to the variables of age, sex and constitutional build, and, perhaps. place more emphasis on the statistical approach to the interpretation of tracings. This book can be easily recommended to the electrocardiographer who has already studied grossly abnormal electrocardiograms and rare arrhythmias, but who is now willing to take up the less dramatic but realistic problem of when an electrocardiogl-am is normal and what it indicates about the cardiovascular health of the patient. RAYMOND HARRIS. M.D.
In this book of 117 pages the p~rmacology as well as the clinical use of the cardiac glycosides is discussed clearly and in a practical way without distraction by too many references from the literature. In addition, therapy with diuretics is reviewed on 12 pages and finally the dosage and particular qualities of the pure glycosides including strophanthin and acetyl-digitoxin is given in table form. The discussion is clear and the author seems to possess considerable clinical experience. Interesting is his conception that for a satisfactory digitalis effect a certain blood level is needed, as in the use of antibiotics, that the intelligent patient himself may decide whether he requires more or less digitalis, that digitalis is not tolerated well by patients with high output failure and. finally, that strophanthin is gaining increasing favor in the United States. DAVID SCHERF, M.D. Varicose
Veins by R. Rodin Foote, \*;ith me assistance of A. Jordan Dingley. John Wright & Sons, Ltd., Bristol, England, 1960.
This complete monograph is graced by excellent It is as illustrations and extensive bibliography. good a clinical treatise on the subject as can be found. The publishers are to be complimented on the colored photographs notable for their clarity and natural tints. The author’s advocacy of excision of varices by intraluminal method is of course his own preference. This is also true of his comment on the statement of Sir Heneage Ogiivie, who seriously doubted that the injection method had any place in treatment. His chapter on the rationale and technics of the conservative method of treating the ulcerated leg particularly reveals the extensive experience and sincere apptication characteristic of the author in almost every section of this worthwhile book.
The Pluricausal Cardiopathies by Hans Selye. M.D. Charles C Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 1961, pp. 438, $21 .OO. Seiye’s new book represents a massive extension of his previous treatise on “The Chemical Prevention of Cardiac Necroses” (1958). It is based on a new veritable avalanche of detailed observations, carried out in the author’s by now familiar style of assemblyline experimentation on many tens of thousands of rats. it was an admirable achievement in itself to organize this type of procedure and to assemble the results in coherent and informative fashion. Most of the salient points of the book have been briefly listed by this reviewer in his discussion of Seiye’s earlier “The Chemical Prevention of Cardiac Nrcroses” (,lm. J. Cardiol, 4: 703, 1959). They do not need to be repeated here. Among the newly added contributions, the extended study of calcifying cardiac lesions is noteworthy. These lesions include, beside the effects of the parathyroid hormone and vitamin D derivatives, also those produced by
LESTER BWM, M.O. Differentiation Between Normal and Abnormal in Electrocardiography by Ernst Simonson, M.D. C. 1..
Mosby Co., St. Louis, Missouri,
1961. pp. 328, $13.50.
It is strange that over 50 years of clectrocardioghave not settled what constitutes a normal electrocardiogram despite the countless books and The thousands of publications on the subject. surprisingly wide disagreement of experienced elcctrocardiographers in reviewing the same set of tracings raphy
306
THE
AMERICAN
JOURNAL
OF CARDIOLOGY
shows the need for improvement and standardization of electrocardiographic interpretation. Simonson believes analysis of the sources of normal variability will improve the diagnostic value of electro~rdiography and establish better values for a normal electrocardiogram. With this idea in mind, he has written a useful book based on a lifetime experience with extensive data obtained from various population groups with varying occupations in many places all over the world. Employing the 95 to 98 per cent ranges determined from calculated percentiles, Simonson set himself the formidable task of using his data statistically to differentiate between normal and abnormal electrocardiograms. In this he succeeds admirably. It is fair to say that Simonson has written an unusual book on the normal electrocardiogram. which becomes more useful with the experience and skill of the efectrocardiographrr. It is not a primer. but a basic book on the subject which raises more questions one that will cause the practiced than it settles; electrocardiographer to pay more attention to the variables of age, sex and constitutional build, and, perhaps. place more emphasis on the statistical approach to the interpretation of tracings. This book can be easily recommended to the electrocardiographer who has already studied grossly abnormal electrocardiograms and rare arrhythmias, but who is now willing to take up the less dramatic but realistic problem of when an electrocardiogl-am is normal and what it indicates about the cardiovascular health of the patient. RAYMOND HARRIS. M.D.
In this book of 117 pages the p~rmacology as well as the clinical use of the cardiac glycosides is discussed clearly and in a practical way without distraction by too many references from the literature. In addition, therapy with diuretics is reviewed on 12 pages and finally the dosage and particular qualities of the pure glycosides including strophanthin and acetyl-digitoxin is given in table form. The discussion is clear and the author seems to possess considerable clinical experience. Interesting is his conception that for a satisfactory digitalis effect a certain blood level is needed, as in the use of antibiotics, that the intelligent patient himself may decide whether he requires more or less digitalis, that digitalis is not tolerated well by patients with high output failure and. finally, that strophanthin is gaining increasing favor in the United States. DAVID SCHERF, M.D. Varicose
Veins by R. Rodin Foote, \*;ith me assistance of A. Jordan Dingley. John Wright & Sons, Ltd., Bristol, England, 1960.
This complete monograph is graced by excellent It is as illustrations and extensive bibliography. good a clinical treatise on the subject as can be found. The publishers are to be complimented on the colored photographs notable for their clarity and natural tints. The author’s advocacy of excision of varices by intraluminal method is of course his own preference. This is also true of his comment on the statement of Sir Heneage Ogiivie, who seriously doubted that the injection method had any place in treatment. His chapter on the rationale and technics of the conservative method of treating the ulcerated leg particularly reveals the extensive experience and sincere apptication characteristic of the author in almost every section of this worthwhile book.
The Pluricausal Cardiopathies by Hans Selye. M.D. Charles C Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 1961, pp. 438, $21 .OO. Seiye’s new book represents a massive extension of his previous treatise on “The Chemical Prevention of Cardiac Necroses” (1958). It is based on a new veritable avalanche of detailed observations, carried out in the author’s by now familiar style of assemblyline experimentation on many tens of thousands of rats. it was an admirable achievement in itself to organize this type of procedure and to assemble the results in coherent and informative fashion. Most of the salient points of the book have been briefly listed by this reviewer in his discussion of Seiye’s earlier “The Chemical Prevention of Cardiac Nrcroses” (,lm. J. Cardiol, 4: 703, 1959). They do not need to be repeated here. Among the newly added contributions, the extended study of calcifying cardiac lesions is noteworthy. These lesions include, beside the effects of the parathyroid hormone and vitamin D derivatives, also those produced by
LESTER BWM, M.O. Differentiation Between Normal and Abnormal in Electrocardiography by Ernst Simonson, M.D. C. 1..
Mosby Co., St. Louis, Missouri,
1961. pp. 328, $13.50.
It is strange that over 50 years of clectrocardioghave not settled what constitutes a normal electrocardiogram despite the countless books and The thousands of publications on the subject. surprisingly wide disagreement of experienced elcctrocardiographers in reviewing the same set of tracings raphy
306
THE
AMERICAN
JOURNAL
OF CARDIOLOGY