Before I bought "Exploring Medical Language" I knew absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing about Medical Terminology.
And to tell you the truth, when I first opened this huge, intimidating, monster of a book, It scared... me... I mean, wouldn't "rhabdomyosarcoma" or "esophagogastroduodenoscopy"
frighten you (just a bit) I thought, nooooo way.

But I opened it, read it, did the cool excersises, listen the the audio tapes, played a bit with the CD-R.

She begins at the beginning.....Little baby steps.

All of a sudden... I was like, I get it! I really get it!
Not only that, but I was beginning to enjoy it.

The prefix, suffix, and word roots suddenely become beautiful, flowing words that make sense.
Myrna LaFleur Brooks made this book come alive, interesting, and allowed medical language to become a little bit like music.
Well, a little!!!! Thanx for the "A" Myrna!

I'm currently using this book as a supplemental text for my paramedic training. We've just finished cardiology, and I couldn't have done it without this text. I already owned Phalen, Dubin, and Huff; all are good, but the Huszar text is now the one I go to first when I have a question about ECG's. There are a multitude of practical illustrations, tables, and review questions. Best of all is the 200-and-some strips for practice in the appendix. Highly recommend!!

What Frank Ryan demonstrates in this book is that evolution by symbiosis has been a "blind spot" for evolutionists since the time of Darwin, and even today is greatly underestimated by the Darwinian establishment as a force in evolutionary change, especially in speciation.

Ryan, who is an expert on viruses having penned such well-received books as Virus X: Tracking the New Killer Plagues and The Forgotten Plague, begins with some interesting history from Darwin's time showing that Darwin did not (and could not, to be fair) appreciate the role symbiosis plays in evolution. Indeed Ryan demonstrates that the process of symbiosis, and its sister processes, parasitism, mutualism and disease, itself has been misunderstood. A relationship between species may begin as parasitism (or disease) and eventually evolve into a symbiosis. This experience between species has been going on since before there were multi-cellular organisms, and is a feature of every species in existence. All species interact with some other species in symbiosis.

This central realization of the book leads to something like a new way of looking at evolution. Natural selection is still a factor, but not necessarily the major factor anymore. This is implied in the discovery not too many years ago that the mitochondria that inhabit the cells in our body are almost certainly the remnants of a once free-living bacterium that, long ago in the primeval soup or near an undersea volcanic caldron, entered a cell and stayed. We are then the product of symbiosis, which may have begun as one cell invading the other, and over the eons turned into a domestic living arrangement with the invading cell providing power to the larger cell as that cell protects and feeds the symbiont that is now earning its keep.

How eye opening this conception is! Imagine the planet filled with life forms that are composed of a dozen, or perhaps hundreds of similar arrangements made over the eons. This is evolution not by gradual steps but evolution by saltation, with a new species arising almost (geologically speaking) immediately. Such a conception would explain many of the gaps in the fossil record.

Ryan builds a strong case. Along the way he looks favorably upon James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis (one of my favorite modern ideas) and explores the role that viruses have had in gene transfers and speciation. He contrasts the neo-Darwinian reductionists (Dawkins, et al) with a different bred of evolutionary biologist including Lynn Margulis, Erik Larsson, Luis P. Villarreal, Kwang Jeon, John Maynard Smith, Eors Szathmary, and others. He also recalls some scientists who pioneered the ideas of symbiosis but never got the credit they deserved and were virtually ignored by the Darwinian establishment. It is surprising to see how "blind" the evolutionists were and how hard it was (and is) for new ideas to gain a foothold in any scientific community. But that is the way it should be: a new idea is just a notion until it finds collaborative support by being tested scientifically.

The Gaia metaphor is perhaps the ultimate expression of symbiosis in that it involves the entire biosphere. Ryan recalls Lovelock's view that our planet with its atmosphere and self-regulating processes represents "an emergent property" of life "tightly coupled with the physics and chemistry of the Earth's environment." (p. 112) This view has yet to gain full acceptance in the scientific community, but as knowledge of the symbiotic and cooperative nature of life (instead of an emphasis on the competitive nature) becomes more widely known (and as the old scientists retire!) I think that will change. Ryan makes it abundantly clear that (to recall an expression I either dreamed up or cribbed from somewhere) "Everything works toward a symbiosis."

One of the bugaboos in natural selection has been the idea of group selection. This has been debated for many decades, but it is becoming increasingly obvious (and Ryan strongly supports this view) that group selection is a reality. Ryan reports on the work of David Sloan Wilson and Elliott Sober, who used mathematic models to demonstrate how group selection might work. (p. 255) I have argued elsewhere for group selection so I won't go any further than to note that the biosphere that survives versus the one that doesn't (either through pollution, madness, lack of foresight, inability to ward off incoming disasters, etc.) is selected.

The most controversial idea in this book may be Ryan's insistence that natural selection should be seen as "an editorial force" acting upon what he calls "the creativity of the Genome." (p. 265). He has German biologist Werner Schwemmler suggest a balance by noting that the "combination of the two explanations (Darwinian gradualism and symbiotic saltation)" together progress "toward a unified theory of evolution." If this is correct, the way we view biological evolution is going to change dramatically in the years to come.

Ryan makes a distinction between endosymbiosis and exosymbiosis, the former involving one genome living within another, the latter pertaining to relationships such as that between pollinating insects and plants. I want to add that the exosymbiosis between humans and our crops and domestic animals has been the essential factor in our becoming a new sort of creature, one that evolves culturally rather than biologically, and will within a twinkling of time evolve into something that we cannot yet envision because of this rapid cultural evolution. Perhaps, as some have suggested, we will form a symbiosis with our intelligent machines and let Darwinian evolution edit the result.

Bottom line: an exciting book, challenging and filled with information and ideas.

I received a PhD at Cornell Univ. in 1971, in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, with a minor in Population Genetics. For most of the succeeding 30 years, though, I have not worked in the field of biology. This book was like taking a new Master's Degree to update the last few decades. Ryan is clear, exhaustive in presenting new data and the development of a new paradigm; the book is well footnoted and thoughtful. His thesis that symbiosis is as important as mutation in the mechanisms of evolution, especially speciation and saltation (major jumps) is very well supported by the data he presents. Although the body of the book is focused on the biological data and its meaning, the author doesn't stop there. The argument also connects sociological, spiritual, environmental and political consequences of evolutionary theory--eugenics and Social Darwinism to Gaia, the world ecosystem, and the need to conserve the biological resources of the earth; and ends with an appeal for the need for awe before this mystery. Excellent and indispensable!

Tuberculosis killed one billion (yes, billion with a "b") in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries alone. Ryan's masterful work describes the decades-long war against the terrifying disease - a conflict that continues even today. In a manner suitable for the layman and written at the pace of an action novel, he describes the staggering amount of work required to gain even the slightest advantage against the dreadful disease.

From his descriptions of tuberculosis itself ("...once established in the lungs, or the bowel, in the throat, in the kidneys, in the eye, or in the very marrow of the bones, [it] festered on and on, impervious to all efforts to cure it, seemingly indestructible. No antibiotic would ever kill such a germ, protected by its thick impenetrable waxy coat.") to his characterizations of the work of scientists such as Waksman, Schact, Lehmann, and Domagk - Ryan has created a work like no other.

Even these brilliant scientists, attacking the disease in every conceivable way, have only temprarily halted its advance against mankind. Its ability to mutate, resisting all known treatments -in combination with new diseases such as AIDS - have raised the terrifying spectre of a renewed disease capable of killing billions more. Nerve-wracking and enlightening, Ryan's work serves as a clarion call to renewed action against TB.

Though this book was written in the 70's, it still is an awesome book about gymnastics. It focused on gymnastics for girls, and covers all the girl's events: vault, floor, beam, and uneven bars. There are black-and-white photos clearly explaining how to do each move. The instructions are awesome, they are very detailed and easy to understand. Not only that, but this book also showed the correct spotting techniques for almost all of the moves. But the best thing about this book is that it covers tons of moves! If I'm learning a new gymnastics skill, I turn to this book for advice and instrutions. Best book on gymnastics ever!

Though this book set out what it was meant to do, I was nevertheless disappointed after finishing it. Enright and Ryan do describe in good detail the stalking and sinking of Japan's secret "supercarrier." However, the writing style struck me as amateurish, filled with meaningless detail probably meant to provide a human touch but instead distracting. A tougher editor could have tightened this book up and increased the suspense.

I disgree with some of the previous reviewers. This is a great read for adventure and it is true. It competes well with fictional Tom Clancy novels. A small U.S. submarine under an unlucky Captain sinks the largest ship in the Japanese Navy.
Shinano was the sister ship to the battleship Yamato (A Glorious Way to Die) and converted into a carrier, the size of one of our nuclear carriers today. The Japanese intended to confront the U.S. Navy with the tremendous firepower of the Shinano. Instead a lowly submarine sinks the Shinano on her maiden voyage.
Regardless of whether the submarine captain Enright or Ryan wrote the story, it is great adventure. Enright is certainly frank in his views, even about his own shortcomings. Both the Japanese and American sides are presented here and this makes it good reading. One understands the fog of battle, after reading about the pursuit of the carrier. A good quick read which is not fiction.

During the years before the outbreak of World War II, the Japanese navy constructed two super-battleships, the Yamato and Musashi. There was a secret third ship, the Shinano, that was to be included in this class. However, with the rise of the aircraft carrier, it was decided to convert the Shinano from a battleship to a carrier. Measuring almost 900 feet in length, Shinano was the largest aircraft carrier in the world, and she held that distinction until the United States launched the USS Enterprise in the 1960s. Cloaked in secrecy, the conversion took place. Crewmembers were threatened with imprisonment or execution if they muttered even the slightest words about the existance of Shinano. Due to the extreme secrecy of her construction, many essential tests, which would later prove to be fatal, were not conducted on Shinano. For example, the watertight integrity of the bulkheads and seals were never tested properly.

An ocean away, Captain Joseph F. Enright and his submarine Archer-fish, were leaving for the boat's fifth war patrol. Captain Enright had been haunted by the memory of failing to sink an enemy carrier earlier in the war while serving as commander of the submarine Dace. Feeling inadequate as a commander, he asked to be relieved of command. After serving at the American submarine base on Midway island as a relief crewman, he finally got his chance to command his own boat again, and he was determined to make sure that he didn't repeat his earlier mistakes this time around. Taking up his patrol station along the main Japanese island of Honshu, Archer-fish awaited action. This particular area of ocean had become known as the "hit parade", due to the large number of sinkings by American submarines. On Tuesday, November 28, 1944, Archer-fish sighted a large enemy vessel with four escorts. This proved to be Shinano. Unable to run at maximum speed due to only eight of her twelve boilers being lit, and also suffering from a problem with her propellers, Shinano was limited to a speed of approximately eighteen knots. What ensued over the next several hours could only be described as a classic game of cat and mouse. Enright and Archer-fish desperately tried to keep up with the Shinano while trying to anticipate any course changes she might make. Finally, at 0300 hours on Wednesday, November 29, 1944, the Archer-fish was ready to fire.

A spread of six torpedoes leapt from her torpedo tubes, each being fired at eight second intervals. Four explosions rocked the Japanese carrier while Archer-fish dove for the safety of the depths. The ship was mortally wounded. Her protective bladder had failed to stop the torpedoes, and, in the words of Enright, they cut through the bladder "like a sword through butter". Later that morning, the Shinano, with her bow raised high out of the water, slipped below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Her maiden voyage had lasted all of seventeen hours.

This is a very exciting book. The format is excellent, with the chapters alternating between the action on the Archer-fish to the action on the Shinano. The first-hand account of the action by Captain Enright leaps off the pages and places the reader directly at the conning tower during the attack. Loaded with action and adventure, this book is a must for submarine readers.

If you've read The Coming Plague (or some of the other books like Dancing Matrix) Virus X is a very interesting exploration of why viruses do what they do. Ryan's theory of symbosis as the "natural" state for viruses seems to explain why viruses wreak so much havoc when they cross species. It was also a revelation to realize that every species (all multiple millions of them) carry their own viruses. That's one large potential pool of what could erupt at any time...

Defintely worth reading if you're interested in the subject.

As a teacher who has a strange fascination with viruses, I use my summer to catch up on the latest books. While this book was in part a review of information presented in much more detail elsewhere (the endnotes are thorough with sources), the author's theory was new to me and kept me thinking for weeks. Even if you are quite familiar with the viruses discussed, I encourage you to read Dr. Ryan's conclusions.

British science journalist and physician Frank Ryan covers a lot of ground in this extensively researched and engagingly written trek into the world of emerging viruses. These viruses, indigenous to disturbed areas of the world, particularly in the tropics, are now being sprung loose to threaten humankind.

The first third of the book covers the story of the "Four Corners" hantavirus that jumped from deer mice to humans with fatal effect in the southwestern United States in 1993. This is science journalism at its best.

In the next third of the book Ryan takes us to the jungles of Africa and traces the origin and effect of the horrendously brutal Ebola virus. Again he tells an engaging story with a pictorial vividness. One is amazed at the courage and dedication of the health care workers and medical scientists who risked their lives to treat the sick and dying and to find the source of the deadly disease.

At the beginning of the last third of the book, Ryan reprises what we know about HIV, its origins, its spread, the political and social stupidities involved in its spread, and the prospects for combating this terror. Again he makes the personalities and the nature of their work come to life. Then beginning with "Chapter Sixteen: The Aggressive Symbiont," Dr. Ryan discusses in general and theoretically the evolutionary nature of viruses, where they came from, why they exist and what we can expect from them in the future. Most pointedly he explores the possibility of a doomsday virus that is simultaneously as easily spread as influenza and as deadly as Ebola.

In a sense this part of the book, originally published in 1996, predicts the SARS outbreak, but does not stop there. Ryan argues persuasively that, because of increased international travel, because of increased disturbance of natural environments, especially equatorial forests, and because of lack of sufficient preparedness, we are in mortal danger from a horrendous pandemic caused by an emerging virus, a virus he dubs "Virus X."

Part of his argument comes from the realization that every species on the planet harbors viruses. Most of these viruses exist in the host in a relatively benign manner. Ryan believes that virus and host are in a symbiotic relationship that has developed over the eons. The host shelters the virus while the virus, when shed into the environment, attacks other species with a deadly ferocity that protects the ecological position of the host. He calls this virus the "aggressive symbiont." It is here that Ryan's thesis is somewhat controversial.

For my part I think it is better to explain the deadly ferocity of an emerging virus by observing that the virus is killing its new host not to protect the old one but because it has not yet fine tuned its relationship so as not to kill the new host. Also the new host has not yet developed mechanisms for dealing with the virus to prevent it from doing egregious harm. Yet, it is valuable to see the virus as an "aggressive symbiont." Clearly the viruses (and other diseases) of the African rain forests are one of the reasons, as Ryan points out--perhaps the most important reason--that those jungles are still standing. It is clear that the AIDS virus that jumped from chimpanzees to humans would, in the pre-modern world, have the long-term effect of keeping humans from successfully usurping their territory. Perhaps it is best to say that viruses help to maintain the existing ecology.

However, to resolve this controversy will require predictive scenarios and experiments by scientists in the field. We should have a better understanding (and perhaps some more precise terminology) a few years down the road. For more information on symbiotic relationships see Ryan's recent and very excellent, Darwin's Blind Spot: Evolution Beyond Natural Selection (2002). Another excellent book on a closely related subject is Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures (2000) by Carl Zimmer where the emphasis is on the parasitic stage of symbiosis.

One of the most interesting ideas Ryan presents is that of "genomic intelligence." We are accustomed to thinking of intelligence in terms of computer chips or neurological growths, but perhaps the most important intelligence on this planet is of another kind, something like that of the ant colony or our immune system or that contained in the form and "behavior" of the virus. Consider, as Ryan does, that the virus has been co-evolving with its hosts, beginning with single-celled bacteria for perhaps a couple billion years or so. During this vast expanse of time it has "explored" the "landscape of the genome" (p. 226) and come to "understand" it so well that it is able to use the genome of virtually every creature on earth for its reproduction. Yet, the genome itself has its intelligence that has allowed it to continue to reproduce itself despite what the viruses are doing. This sort of intelligence cannot be discerned from examining the virus or the genetic code alone because such intelligence exists in concert with an environment at the molecular level of shapes and surfaces that is only expressed through the dynamics of growth. As in an ant colony there is no centralized "authority" where this intelligence exists; indeed the intelligence is an emergent property of the entity's interaction with its environment.

This book is therefore more than just a compelling report on the threat we face from emerging viruses, but an exploration of the evolutionary significance of our place within the viral environment. It is so well written, so well thought out and still so entirely pertinent to what is happening today that I would like to see Ryan revise it to include material on SARS and other outbreaks and to bring us up to date on what is now being done by the World Health Organization and other institutions to fight the grave dangers we face.

This book is touted as showing how to prevent disease through changing your lifestyle, right? Well, keep in mind that the authors never tried changing their subjects' lifestyles! So we really have no way of knowing whether if the nurses they studied had changed their diets, they would have been healthier or not. In medical science, the only way to really find these things out is to actually do a clinical trial...randomly assign people to different groups to follow a certain program and then see what program is best. These authors didn't do that so their results are just observational. You might see in your neighborhood that three women who like to wear lavender clothes all came down with cancer...does that prove that if you stop wearing lavender clothes you won't get cancer? These authors have never shown that they can prevent disease through their recommendations. The authors never treated these women as patients, in fact they never even saw them! Also keep in mind that all these results are just based on the subject's reports of what they ate, how much they weighed etc. The authors never verified that the answers were truthful. And they never measured the women's blood pressure or cholesterol levels or any other ordinary lab tests that your doctor does on a routine visit. So this book is really just a bunch of advice that sounds plausible but might or might not have any effect on preventing disease. Don't believe the hype!

The Landmark Nurse Health Study was enormously interesting and full of useful information,as well as being clearly and understandably written for the layperson. The authors enlisted the help of 170,000 nurses to track their health status over the past 25 years, by filling out questionnaires every few years, occasionally requesting blood samples and even nail clippings from some. This is a report on their work, which also cites many other studies, some that agree and others that disagree with the authors findings. They emphasize that this is the latest word, but not the last.
The researchers discuss at length those situations in which certain medications that are advantageous for one disorder may be disadvantageous for another. Choosing which way to go will require consideration of hereditary factors and family history, as well as consultation with ones primary care provider.
Asking nurses to do this kind of information gathering was well conceived, as we all know that nurses are meticulous record keepers, as well as being altruistic and concerned with the welfare of their fellow human beings.
I find myself quoting frequently from this book, as well as recommending it to all my women friends and relatives. I enjoyed reading it and benefited from the information it contained.

This book deserves more than five stars. It is by far the best resource on women's health issues that I have seen.

Review Summary: How can women improve their health by changing their lifestyle, diet, and activities? That's the question that this book answers. Based on the longest running and most authoritative sources of information, you should prefer the information here to what you will read in other resources. The book deals with factors like age, race, exercise, diet, use of supplements, weight, birth control pill and hormone replacement usage, smoking, and drinking in order to define how these affect the incidence of disease. In addition, the book also tells women how to improve their chances for avoiding diseases where where behavior counts for a lot.

Review: The detailed focus of this book is remarkable. Unlike most books about health that look at men and women together, this one drills down to many different perpectives on women. For instance, if you took oral contraceptives in the 1970s, what is the effect on your risk of breast cancer today? If you take supplementary calcium now, how does that affect your risk of having a bone fracture when you are past 70? These are the kind of specific, and important questions that this book looks at. And the data are not necessarily what you think. Calcium supplements, for instance, don't seem to help with reducing fractures. If you discontinued oral contraceptives some time ago, the impact on breast cancer incidence seems to drop off to nil.

The data for the book come from several long-term studies. The most significant is Harvard Medical School's Nurses' Health Study, which began in 1976. The base was 120,000 R.N.s aged 30-55. The original focus of this work was on oral contraceptives, but many other data were assembled in two page questionnaires sent every other year. Since then, biological samples have been added liked toenail clippings and blood. In 1989 116,000 more nurses were added in the Nurses' Health Study II, which tracks younger women than those in the earlier group who are now increasingly elderly. Nurses were originally chosen because it was thought they would be more accurate in their data and more likely to be open about sharing information about contraceptive and reproductive practices. Since then the National Institutes of Health have also started a tracking study focusing on the use of postmenopausal hormones, low fat diets, and the impact of calcium and other supplements on postmenopausal health. All three studies are used extensively in this book.

The book's first section looks at the studies and how to interpret the data that come from them. The second section (and the longest) looks at a different diseases. Instead of lumping cancer together, for instance, you get separate looks at breast, lung, colon, endometrial, ovarian, and skin cancer. Other dieases covered include heart disease, stroke, diabetes, osteoporosis, asthma, arthritis, eye ailments, and Alzheimer's. The final section is on advice about how to do better with physical activity, weight control, smoking, nutrients, foods, alcohol, vitamins and minerals, postmenopausal hormones, birth control, and aspirin.

Unlike many books coming from physicians, this book is easy to understand and apply. You get a lot of scientific data, but you also get lots of instances of plain English. For example, there are quotes from nurses and how one doctor provides advice in each section for what she or he tells patients about that subject. Also, each chapter has a simple, useful summary that you can use to put everything in perspective.

If the book has a weakness, it's that you cannot learn as much as you need to know about how to change difficult behaviors like smoking and eating foods that lead to excess weight in brief chapters. So, once you've decided you want to improve your behavior, I suggest that you also seek out other books that are more specialized on those issues.

Obviously, this book will be of interest and value to women. Why should men read it? I told my wife about how good I thought this book was, and she asked me how she should change her behavior based on the book's information. I was able to summarize for her in less than five minutes what I had observed that she could beneficially change. So this book can be valuable for men to read, if they share the information with women they know. Also, men can give this book to women as a token of their love and caring.

After you finish this book, I suggest that you also think about where you can get such authoritative information about other important subjects in your life . . . like getting along well with others, enjoying good mental health, feeling happy and optimistic, and giving and receiving love. Why not make improvements in all these dimensions?

Remember: You deserve the best that you can provide for yourself!

i am teacher and i was sport in young so pole vault every interesting for me.

This book is considered to be the standard reference work on basic pole vaulting technique. While times have changed in the sport, Dr. Ryan's approach to it is considered one of the fundamental applications to the basic methodology of technique and tactics in the sport and is a must read for all who are just entering the sport or who have already developed intermediate skills. It is now out of print and has become quite a sought after item among coaches.

If you are planning to play Space: 1889, this is THE supplemental book to get. It gives much greater detail to Mercury & Venus than the rulebook, and adds to the information on Mars. The information on Victorian Earth is lacking, though the travel times and world maps of 1889 Earth are helpful.
Cloud Captains provides interesting detail on Karkarham, "the Casablanca of Mars" - where just about anything goes. It is a great place to set a campaign for ribald adventurers.