Metabolic Acidosis

Too many things feature in this book. It is not a compendium of present practice in the somewhat diverse chapters on which it depends. We thus have some unrelated topics such as care, selection and use of plasmapheresis donors which all transfusionists will welcome, followed by use and contra-indications of albumoid solutions which featured as a Council of Europe monograph last year. Similarly, a Council of Europe publication of the Use of Coagulation Products has been published and nothing unusual is presented for the informed reader. The final section on immunoglobulins and their uses is welcomed since there is no established treatise where such information is collected together for easy access. Taking that the World Health Organisation has a remit to inform and help, this book will be of great value throughout the world if nothing else but to indicate what is topical, what can be achieved, and what is yet to be achieved. It is essential reading for blood transfusionists all over the world as a guide and friend. With rapid changes in blood transfusion centre requirements for quality assurance and validation of data, this book comes at a most opportune time for many workers in the United Kingdom. It is well informed and easily read and can be confidently recommended. approaches to the subject and yet is still both reasonable in size and price. It is divided into four sections, these being bacterial biology, medically important bacteria, bacterial disease, and treatment and prevention of bacterial disease. It achieves all this in three hundred and fifty pages by using a note form which does not appeal to all teachers but is much favoured by students. In my opinion this disadvantage is more than compensated for by the amount of material contained within the covers. The text is eminently readable and mostly very sound; the few errors present are mostly minor and will no doubt be corrected when the book goes to a second edition (as I am sure it will). The biggest omission in my opinion are short sections on parasitology and mycology, which are not strictly bacteriology, but nevertheless are important subjects and not ones for which medical students should buy separate texts. (It is assumed that students will buy the companion virological text.) The other criticism is the extremely abbreviated reading list. It is headed "recommended reading" and lists only three books (Benenson, Christie and Topley, and Wilson). It would be much more valuable if an extended list of further reading be given so that students can delve deeper into sections of the subject which they find of interest. Despite these criticisms I wholeheartedly recommend this text for all medical students; the authors are to be congratulated.