lescent's needs in health care, his physical and emotional growth, and his relationship to society. Society is given the "adolescents' eye-view" of themselves and ...
BOOK REVIEWS
Adolescents in Health and Disease. William A. Daniel Jr. 392 pp. The C.V. Mosby Company, Saint Louis, 1977. $22.60, paperbound. ISBN 0-8016-2101-2 Some 7 years ago Daniel, together with 19 other contributors, wrote "The Adolescent Patient", a book permeated with great empathy for this important age group. His thorough understanding of adolescents is highlighted even more in this book, since he has chosen. to present his personal views and experiences with the help of only two contributors. Joan Lipsitz, to whom .Daniel modestly credits greater expertise than he, is responsible for the chapter entitled "Adolescents and society". The other contributor is Dahiel's wife Jean, who adds her astute observations to those of her husband in an expressive, unusual discussion called "Physicians, parents and adolescents". The book is divided into two parts. Part I gives an overview of the adolescent's needs in health care, his physical and emotional growth, and his relationship to society. Society is given the "adolescents' eye-view" of themselves and of itself. The chapter on physicians, parents and adolescents, written conjointly by the Daniels, suggests to parents that their own growth might well include an awareness of the changing problems confronting our young people. The observation that even adults change their attitudes and standards with the passage of time should make their understanding of the adolescent and his or her problems more sympathetic, yet not maudlin.
The discussion of major developmental tasks gives the reader valuable insight into the adolescent's struggle to attain independence, complicated as it is by his or her necessity to retain positive. values from the family background. In fairness to parents, it is pointed out that they are frequently not given credit by the adolescent for the heroic efforts they put into the upbringing of their offspring. An unusual, brief discussion of "middlescence" (the age group of 35 to 50 years) giv.s a good understanding of parental self-doubts, identity crises and the weight of responsibility for self and family, all of which influence the parents' behaviour when their children are experiencing the same problems. The second and major part of the book is devoted to health care in its broadest sense. Throughout this section the personal concerns and interactions of the patient with his or her problem are stressed. Therefore, the approach the enlightened physician should take is interspersed with great skill and understanding throughout these chapters. Medical information is adequately given. The lack of detail and of sufficient scientific discussion from which some of the chapters suffer (e.g., that on anorexia nervosa) is compensated partially by a bibliography and references. A positive feature in the book's presentation is the stress given to the influence of the patient's stage of maturity, as opposed to chronologic age, on the diagnosis and interpretation of the presenting findings, a consideration neglected by many physicians
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evaluating an adolescent's disease. The book is easy to read and very nicely organized, and its soft cover makes it conveniently portable. It is an outstanding guide to the uninitiated, and a very valuable resource to any student or practitioner who proposes to deal with the adolescent in health and sickness. All topics are presented with an eye to practical application. L.N. PEARLMAN, MD
Associate professor of pediatrics University of Ottawa Ottawa, Ont.
Medicine and Sport. Vol. 10. The Role of Exercise in Internal Medicine. Edited by Banial Brunner and Ernst JokI. 181 pp. lIlust. S. Karger AG, Basel, 1977. $37.75. ISBN 3-8055-2362-9 This publication, volume 10 in the series, consists of a selection of papers pertaining to medicine and sport delivered at the International Congress of Internal Medicine held in Israel in 1974. Brunner and JokI are eminent figures in the field of exercise physiology, epidemiology and rehabilitation. For those who still consider sports medicine to be the domain of the burly "ex-jock doc" or the sole province of the surgeon, this book may come as a surprise. Five of the 13 chapters deal with the currently contentious topic of exercise and its effect on the heart, 2 chapters examine the results of training programs on blood pressure, and 1 chapter deals with the endocrinologic aspects of muscular work. Exercise and metabolic bone disease, as well as the immunologic status of athletes, are two other topics covered in con-
cise and practical terms. The discussion of the latter presents the interesting hypothesis that the highly trained physical state may carry with it an increased susceptibility to intercurrent infection, an idea that can be partially explained on the basis of Selye's theory of stress as a cause of diseases. The expert in the field of exercise physiology or sports medicine will find little that is new in this volume, but I am sure that the newcomer to the field or the interested health professional will be intrigued by the wide range of topics covered. Any reader is bound to be struck by the unassuming competence of most of the contributors. I was particularly impressed by Jokl's 12-page introduction, in which he interweaves the topics of sport, physiology, medical history and philosophy in a delightful blend of scholarship - a style of presentation that has become his international hallmark at sports medicine meetings over the past 30 years or so. The price of this book probably makes it somewhat of a luxury for the individual purchaser, but I can highly recommend it for the libraries of medical schools and departments of physiology and physical education. T. KAVANAGH, MD, D PHYS MED (LOND), FRCI4C]
Medical director Toronto Rehabilitation Centre Toronto, Ont.
Ocular Therapeutics and Pharmacology. 5th ed. Philip P. Ellis. 283 pp. IlIust. The C.V. Mosby Company, Saint Louis, 1977. $20.50. ISBN 0-8016-1516-X This is a classic textbook that gives concisely the basic considerations of current ocular therapy and pharmacology. The organization is excellent, as is the second section on therapeutic agents and the index. One major shortcoming is the lack of a section on contact lens solutions, particularly those for soft contact lenses. Perhaps in his sixth edition Dr. Ellis will devote a chapter to this increasingly important subject. The book is otherwise excellent and should be in every ophthalmo-
logic library. It easily benefits the ophthalmology resident, the busy practising ophthalmologist and para-
ophthalmologic personnel, as well as medical or nursing personnel who have an interest in the eye. This book has survived the test of time and I am certain there will be many successive editions. A. CHESKES, MD, M sc, FRCS[C]
3000 Lawrence Ave. E, Apt. 104 Scarborough, Ont.
The Picture of Health. Environmental Sources of Disease. Erik P. Eckholm. 256 pp. IlIust. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, 1977. Price not stated, paperbound. ISBN 0-393-06434-4 This book is clearly written and, I believe, of interest to both medical and nonmedical readers. It places health care in perspective as part of the total environmental problem and relates the health of the population to broad environmental factors such as social problems (food, housing, water supply), personal habits (eating, smoking, stress of work), population, environmental pollutants and occupational hazards. This book should be read by medical students because it shows the student the broad aspect of health and clearly illustrates where the problems lie that must be solved if we are going to truly upgrade or improve the health of the populations throughout the world. It illustrates to students that one has to look at total health and its relation to social, economic, geographic and cultural characteristics rather than just studying individual diseases for their cause, investigation and potential therapy. This book also demonstrates a historical perspective, which allows us to use many of the facts to, one hopes, improve the future through an understanding of mistakes made in the past. The chapter entitled "Human geography of under-nutrition" discusses how Brazilian farmers are increasing their production of soya beans for export at the expense of growing a nutritious crop for local consumption by low-income families. This is only one example of the broad approach to health this book undertakes. The chapter entitled "The mutinous bounty; hazards of the affluent diet" certainly puts this area in appropriate perspective. All the chapters are pertinent to the specific health problems we face today. The last
paragraph of the last chapter states: "Concern for human health leads inescapably to concern about humans' treatment of the natural environment - living and non-living, but also leads to concern about humans' treatment [of] one another; for the forces that promote poverty, remain the greatest threats to human health." While this book does not answer all the questions it certainly poses the problem and I heartily recommend it to all readers of the Journal. W.M. GOLDBERG, MD, FRCP[C], FACP Chief of medicine St. Joseph's Hospital Hamilton, Ont.
Radiology of the Skull and Brain. Vol. 3. Anatomy and Pathology. Edited by Thomas H. Newton and D. Gordon Potts. 434 pp. lIlust. The C.V. Mosby Company, Saint Louis, 1977. $49.90. ISBN 0-80163648-5 Volume 3 of this series is entitled "Anatomy and Pathology". Most of the chapters2are well written and the illustrations, mainly anatomic, are of excellent quality. The first three chapters review the development of the cerebral ventricles, the production, function and absorption of cerebrospinal fluid, and the topographic brain anatomy. The development of the human brain is described in an interesting fashion in relation to the successive evolutionary changes from the primitive amphioxus through to reptiles and primates. The chapter on topographic anatomy contains well labelled illustrations including several coronal and some axial brain sections, but it does not contain a series of sequential axial brain sections cut in the plane used in computerized tomography, although this seems a logical place to include such a series. The last six chapters deal with the pathology of congenital anomalies, intracranial tumours, cranial cerebral injury, infections and demyelinating diseases, cerebrovascular insufficiency, and hydrocephalus and brain atrophy. The chapter on cranial cerebral injury is somewhat difficult to read, perhaps because so much material is presented. The chapter on demyelinating diseases will be of particular value to radiologists since computerized tomography has opened the field
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