covering all the topics.Pictures are excellent and professional.Some pictures are very useful for the doctors .For example I have never seen ROSE SPOTS in Typhoid.In this book they have showed it very clearly!
I recommend this book to all the undergraduate and postgraduate medical students.
Examples of pieces in the book: "First Aid" is a short story in which the inepitude of the civil service/nobility kills a drunk "drowning" victim through folk medicine (tossing on a rug) and vague "CPR" instructions.
"From the Diary of an Assistant Bookkeeper" is a tale of perpetual hope of promotion based on the demise of the current bookkeeper given in the form of a diary.
"Questions Posed by a Mad Mathematician" presents the worst fears for a mathmatics test. Example: "I was chased by 30 dogs, 7 of which were white, 8 gray, and the rest black. Which of my legs was bitten, the right or the left?"
"Confession - or Olya, Zhenya, Zoya: A Letter" is a bachelor's explanation of why he has never married - the disasters (from hiccups up) that have foiled each proposal.
The remaining pieces are as diverse and entertaining. The pieces are the best of over 400 short pieces available from the early period. Even if you don't generally read Russian literature you will enjoy these pieces.
This was written and rewritten when Victorian erudition was in the making. Some authors in the long series of its well parsed institutional writing would still like to see it continuing in THAT well established tradition.
Alas, the times have changed. Recent anatomy texts are dwarfs not even climbing on the shoulders of the likes of Gray, Braus and Testut. Those authors professed ideals of "seeing through the skin structures", "synmorphy" and "mentally reconstructing the living". Today we do all this with machines...
I stopped reading the huge text linearly at the complicated review of angiogenesis, but still browse dedicated chapters for standard, if somewhat elaborate descriptions. Comprehensive knowledge parsing seems to have lived a fruitful life and then exit the scene to enrich scientific obituaries. But if Gibbon were still an example of style, the fifth star would be added when that clarity, in my view mandatory for monuments, will be eventually reached.
First, because it is written by a single author, it maintains a consistent style and viewpoint throughout--that is, the application of evolutionary biology and cognitive science to the study of the mind and behavior. Consequently, he does not shy away from putting forward strong arguments where they are needed. On this, see especially his superb discussion of the fall of behaviorism and the rise of cognitivism.
Second, the author has a powerful command of several lines of important research, and he uses this to "smarten up" the text to make it *more* understandable. As an example, see particularly his discussions of the heritability of intelligence.
Third, the text is beautifully organized.
The text does, however, suffer from two small weaknesses: the discussion of self-esteem owes too much to James, with James' errors especially, and the discussion of mental health and happiness needlessly bore little imprint from the chapters on cognition.
Still, Gray produced a superlative volume.
Features of this pocket book include:
- It covers wide range of infectious diseases compared to its size.
- User-friendly format.
- The text is on the left side of the page, where each disease is dealth with according to its etiology, incidence, pathogenesis, clinical features, complications, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.
- High-quality color clinical pictures on the right side of the page. These pictures include microscopic (histopathology) pictures, macroscopic specimens, electron microscopy, imaging (e.g. x-rays, CT), diagrams (e.g. hepatitis antigens), and clinical bed-side pictures.
- Contents include:
Classical infectious diseases of childhood [Measles, Rubella, Congenital rubella syndrome (CRS), Mumps, Erythema infectiousum, and Chickenpox], Herpez zoster (shingles), Herpez simplex infections, Kawasaki (mucucutaneous lymph node) syndrome, Lyme disease, Orf, Herpangina, Hand foot and mouth disease, Infectious mononucleosis, Toxoplasmosis, Cytomegalovirus, Viral hepatitis, Leptospirosis, Staphyloccocal infection, Osteomyelitis, Infections with Streptococcus pyogenes, Scarlet fever, Anthrax, Diphtheria, Tetanus, Enteric (Typhoid and paratyphoid) fevers, Infantile gastroenteritis, Pseudomembranous colitis, Meningococcal infections, Bacterial meningitis (non-meningococcal), Viral meningitis, Tuberculosis, Pertussis, Acute croup and bronchiolitis, Community-acquired pneumonia, Legionnaire's disease, Lung abscess, Erythema nodosum, Stevens-Jonson syndrome, Antibiotic rashes, Syphilis, Gonococcaemia, Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), and Index.
- It can be used for quick revision among medical students as well as residents.
- This pocket book is in its 2nd edition (1999), published by Churchill Livingstone company, and comes in 125 pages.
All in all, this pocket book is recommended for high-yield revision.