This book is a useful brief review and compendium of diagnostic neurological information. The paperback version is small enough to carry around or put in a briefcase. The book packs a considerable amount of information into about 400 pages. There are a couple of dozen chapters, organized according to the usual neurological disease categories, and there are a number of nicely done charts and tables that make good, quick references. Keep in mind this book is not intended to be exhaustive and is meant as a quick review or reference. It is intended for practicing physicians, so familiarity with the technical and medical terminology is assumed, and most technical terms are not explained. The book benefits from recent research, and contains up-to-date information on such rapidly changing areas as Alzheimer's. The book has references into Adams and Ropper's larger neurological handbook for those who want more information. Overall a good, concise reference work in neurology.

Well...to read Bacchylides (in Robert Fagles'
translation) after having read Pindar (in C.M. Bowra's
translation--Penguin Classics) is to read (for me)
shorter, fresher, clearer poetry.
Yet, strangely, in his "Introduction" Fagles finds
it necessary to defend Bacchylides against the greater
fame and tradition of admiration for Pindar -- but
Fagles does a very good job of making his case for
Bacchylides (and, of course, the poetry speaks
in translation in favor of Bacchylides as well).
Interestingly, Bowra has written the "Foreword" for
Fagles' edition of Bacchylides. Bowra says that
Bacchylides is hard to translate -- but the advantage
for Fagles is that Bacchylides has had few translations,
since the remains of his poetry were not known to
modern times until 1896. Bowra says that since Fagles
is not hampered by so many previous earlier versions
of translations, he makes almost a fresh start, and
with unusual courage, judgment, and creative insight

has produced a work which is both a faithful translation
of Bacchylides as well as a work of art in its own right.
That is high praise indeed, from one classical translator
to another.
In his "Introduction," Fagles admits early on that
the usual perception of Bacchylides has been that he
was considered "a dull and slight, or, a sweet and
sometimes charming practitioner of the kind of poetry
which Pindar created with profundity and magnificence."
But Fagles won't let that unfair judgment go...so
Pindar is by far the greater poet, is he? --well,
Bacchylides handles the genre differently, with his
own distinct virtues, and he is interested in different
things from Pindar. Fagles says that Bacchylides does
not consider himself to be a prophet as Pindar did.
Bacchylides stands back from his work and "prefers to
consider himself a craftsman." The element of
narrative (as in Homer) is more important to Bacchylides
than in Pindar. Fagles says, "Bacchylides lacks the
inwardness of Pindar...He is cooler, brighter, more
objective." Fagles says that in narrative grace and
crisp elegance, Bacchylides is the superior to Pindar.
This volume is divided into sections of different
types of poems: Epinician Odes [14] (to honor victorious
athletes in the various games held in ancient Greece--
Isthmian Odes, Olympian Odes, Pythian Odes, Nemean Odes);
Dithyrambs [15-27] (concerning various mythic figures--
The Sons of Antenor, Heracles, Theseus [2 poems], Io,
Idas, Cassandra, Pasiphae, Chiron) -- Fragments, Fragments
of Uncertain Genre, and Doubtful Pieces.
There is also a section of "Notes" in the back to
explain some aspects of the poems.
Though Bacchyides' sentences tend to be a bit more
complete, to me personally, I get the same freshness
from reading Fagles' renderings of these poems in
their short, clear impact after reading the rather
turgid Pindar (in translation), as I get when
I read Emily Dickinson after having had enough
of a dose of bombastic, droning, tedious
Walt Whitman in his longer, "prophetic"
pieces. Walt can be glorious, mystic, intimate,
delicate -- but he can also be tiresome.
Try Bacchylides for a refreshing easement.
_______________
Men can maneuver no hold
Over wealth or stubborn war
Or the feuds that rock a state --
But raking her clouds from land to land,
Destiny -- that Pandora -- ranges.
-- Bacchylides.
* * * * * * * * *

this is a very good hand book to caried with you to the hospital. this book is recomended to medicine student and doctors and specialist in neurology to. It gives you a very good information about practical issues in neurology. instead of that it's a cheap book that any one can buy.

This text is not easy to read, but it packs a lot of information. You can almost guarantee that this book will provide useful info on any neurological disease. It is one of the best reference books for general neurology. I also find its end-chapter references to be fairly complete. One criticism is that it does not offer too many tables or illustrations.

This is a very comprehensive book on the subject of neurology. Unfortunately, I was only interested in about 25% of the book's contents---those dealing with mental illness. Maybe I should have bought Neurology for Psychiatrists, but that book is smaller, so this one probably has almost as much psychiatric information anyway. Unlike many of the other reviewers, I actually LIKE the amount of detail in this book, although since I don't have an M.D. or a Ph.D. I could not understand all of it. I did also notice from the other reviews that there is a demand for a for user-friendly book dealing with Neurology, that parents can read to help understand their child's neurological deficits. Well, I have the solution! My book, The Failures of American Medicine (available at Amazon for [price]), contains five chapters on mental illness, and is both technical and relatively easy to read. I hope I have provided an answer for the parents who are struggling to find understandable information.

The sentiments expressed by the father are admirable, if somewhat inaccurate in areas. But I don't think parents should be asked to read *this* book - it's a specialist medical textbook! By all means, laypersons should read up on medical issues affectin their lives. But I think more efficient methods would be to read patient summaries etc - literature written speciffically so laypeople can *understand* what they are reading.

This book is really really great. Not that it is very interesting to read, mind. It's great in the sense that it provides you with just about any piece of info that you need to access about this complex disease.