Readable But Basic

the American health scene by discussing poverty - "A steady, wellpaying job will do far more to improve a poor man's health than a neighborhood health center with its doctors and drugs" - and the need for an all-out national commitment to lower the fertility rate. "We have a name for people who use the rhythm method", he says: "We call them parents". Urging a vigorous family planning program, Gerber says that present income tax laws need to be reversed so that they penalize rather than encourage large families. While acknowledging that there is much that is good in today's medical structure, the author claims to have 4"washed some of my own profession's dirty linen in medicine's troubled waters". My feeling is that while the Gerber report can hardly be said to be deafening, at least insofar as its objective of jolting its author's colleagues into action is concerned, it may well be heard in the court of last resort the American public. Is this book relevant to the Canadian reader? Perhaps, if one considers that these U.S. problems may well become ours if we don't act now. But for Canadian family doctors, there's not a great deal of worthwhile or jolting information. At the very least, it may help to turn the current wave of medicophobia into fuller awareness, genuine concern, constructive criticism and cooperative remedial action from the public. Reviewed by David Woods. (Mr. Woods is Editor of CANADIAN FAMILY PHYSICIAN).

Readable But Basic Primer on Drug Abuse Title: Drugs and Human Behaviour. Author: Gordon Claridge, MD Publisher: Longman Canada Ltd. Price: $10.25 Pages: 266 Dr. Claridge is a Glasgow psychologist, well-experienced in the field of psychopharmacology. Drugs and Human Behaviour is a well-written, well-printed, readable primer in basic clinical psychopharmacology. It relates basic principles to clinical psychiatric 26

medicine and to some drugs in common non-medical use, such as alcohol, cannabis and LSD-25. The book is remarkably objective, with a sound scientific base in this era of emotionladen value judgments. Unfortunately, it is somewhat complex for the lay reader, and one would hope that most physicians would already understand the principles involved. It, nonetheless, remains a good orienting book and some useful basic and clinical studies are described. Overall, it is hardly to be recommended as necessary reading for the up to date family physician. For the doctor who wishes some extra reading and who wants to review basic psychopharmacology and its objective relationships with recent clinical knowledge, Drugs and Human Behaviour is an interesting and useful addition to the usually jonger, more verbose and more judgmental books already available. Reviewed by Lionel P Solursh, MD. Dr. Solursh is a psychiatrist at the Toronto Western Hospital and the author of numerous articles on drugs.

Useful Memory Aid, Low on Psychiatry Title: "Current Therapy 1971" Editor: Howard F. Conn, MD Publisher: W. B. Saunders Co. Canada Ltd. Price: $17.30 Pages: 836

problem. In most cases, the authors have been able to strike a happy balance between the detailed exposition of the standard textbooks of medicine and the purely empirical "cookbook" approach, so that each chapter is brief enough that it can be referred to within the time constraints of an office visit. However, when the physician has a difficult therapeutic dilemma e.g. when and how do I start investigating and treating a hypertensive patient, the authors have not provided enough information to make a rational decision. The second claim is, "the methods described are representative of the current approach to complete management of the patient and thus give the physician the balanced viewpoint so necessary for the practice of good medicine" (italics mine). The authors have failed to reach this goal. The psychiatric aspects of illness have not received sufficient comment and the social factors in sickness have been ignored. Scant mention is made of the role of the family in illness and the individual rather than the family is considered the unit of treatment. Too little is said about managing the psychological problems of chronic illness and nothing is said about the care of the dying patient. Prevention is mentioned in the management of individual illnesses but there is no discussion of the role of periodic health assessments or screening procedures. The management of long-term illness is only superficially discussed; instead the emphasis is on episodes of disease. These criticisms are understandable when one considers that the book has been written and edited by a group of hospital-oriented superspecialists. This is ironic since the book is presumably written for family doctors. In conclusion, this is a useful, wellwritten aide memoire for the family physician for handy reference in the office. However, it is deficient in dealing with psycho-social problems and lacks the orientation to prevention, continuing care and care of the whole family that are the hallmarks of good family practice.

This is the 23rd annual edition of this popular textbook of therapy. If success in the marketplace is a criterion of worth, it must be a good book. Indeed it presents a good overall coverage of common problems encountered in medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, but it does not discuss surgical treatment and the paltry 20 pages for psychiatric problems are completely inadequate. Two claims made for this book in the editor's preface deserve special comment: "The articles have been written specifically to give concise, accurate and sufficiently detailed Reviewed by W. W. Weston, MD. Dr. information unhampered by material Weston is a family physician practicing not directly related to the therapy in Tavistock, Ont. proposed. " (italics mine). This poses a CANADIAN FAMILY PHYSICIAN * JULY, 1971