common operations for congenital heart disease. This is achieved ... pathology would have been helpful. This is a ... Endocrine Disorders: A Guide to Diagnosis.
Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine Volume 77 November 1984 991 This is a useful book for all those interested in then be 28 mmHg, but Pco2 only 7.5 mmHg. Is high altitude characterized more by extreme surgery for congenital heart disease and with its hypocapnia with only modest hypoxia - unlike 'real life' pictures gives an excellent introduction most clinical conditions? The achievement of for surgeons, anaesthetists and physicians Messner and Habeler in climbing Everest involved in the management of these anomalies. without oxygen in 1978 is analysed in some Any library which provides for this group should have a copy. detail. JANE SOMERVILLE This book would be valuable for any medical Consultant Physician school library, and could well be the starting in Congenital Heart Diseases point for any thesis concerned with hypoxia. The National Heart Hospital, London only major criticism unfortunately is that the index is inadequate for such a wide-ranging Gastrointestinal Endoscopy: Advances in symposium. DAVID C FLENLEY Diagnosis and Therapy, vol 1. P R Salmon (ed) Professor of Respiratory Medicine pp 278 £17.50 London: Chapman & Hall 1984 University of Edinburgh This welcome addition to the growing literature on endoscopy is principally confined to the upper gastrointestinal tract, though there are three A Colour Atlas of Cardiac Surgery: Congenital contributions relating to the colon. The somewhat Heart Disease. J L Monro & G Shore confused state of precisely what to do in upper pp 192 £55 London: Wolfe Medical 1984 This atlas is intended primarily for junior surgical gastrointestinal bleeding is confined to advice staff wishing to understand how to do the under the heading 'The Difficult Bleeder - Recent common operations for congenital heart disease. Advances'. These include methods of diagnosis This is achieved by 154 pages of colour and the use of electrocoagulation and photophotographs showing each step of the operation. coagulation. The surgical considerations are not A simple text beneath each illustration sum- particularly well dealt with; perhaps this is not marizes the procedure, and line diagrams at the surprising when so much is being done by beginning of each chapter show the physiology of conservative methods, but it does leave a gap in the book. The section on oesophageal problems is each anomaly. The method, as seen through the eyes of a engagingly written in plain language, suggesting meticulous cardiac surgeon, is effective. The good that most problems can be diagnosed by listening colour printing accounts for the high cost of the carefully to the patient. There is some very useful slim volume. Indeed, the surgical steps are so well up-to-date information about endoscopic retroillustrated and many operations look so easy that grade cholangiopancreatographic examination the reviewer (a cardiologist) feels tempted to try (ERCP), and this section is particularly them! Unfortunately the photography is not commended. The section on colonoscopy conuniformly excellent and some illustrations are tains little that is new, though there is an very 'rosy' and without contrast, looking like interesting reference to the variability of diagthose slides often shown by surgeons where noses by different pathologists in lesions of the blood, fingers and retractors predominate. cervix! C G CLARK Another problem is that, in illustrating proProfessor of Surgery gressive steps, there are repeated illustrations of University College London School of Medicine pipes and clamps in the forefront and the important operation site is much smaller and not always very clear. It would have been better to Endocrine Disorders: A Guide to Diagnosis enlarge the part where the actual suturing is (Basic and Clinical Endocrinology, vol 4) performed rather than to continue showing the R A Donald (ed) pp 789 £50 same pieces of 'steel'. The diagrams are good New York: Marcel Dekker until the addition of red and blue arrows which & London: Butterworths 1984 This book, which is concerned only with the make them appear unclear. Perhaps the most irritating feature of this book diagnosis of endocrine disorders, has been are the large areas of blank spaces which could divided into three main categories. The first gives have been beneficially filled with simple notes on an overview of methodology, the second deals surgical 'caveats' or problems encountered. Some with the pathophysiology of endocrine disorders additions such as closing the Blalock. shunt with and appropriate investigations and the third gives clips or ligatures, the appearance of aberrantly detailed protocols of dynamic tests. Although this placed coronary branches across the right outflow book with authors from different parts of the and better illustrations of the aortic valve world has successfully avoided the parochial approach, the variation in details of tests in pathology would have been helpful.
