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The health problems of the elderly result far more from the biological effects of aging rather than from disease. Having missed this focus, currently available texts do not provide good management guidelines. The clinician, frustrated in nursing home or office by such complaints as dizziness, fatigue, constipation, and back pain, will welcome a new geriatric text. Whether Clinical Geriatrics will resolve his frustrations may depend, however, on what knowledge gaps he is trying to fill.
In many ways, Rossman has prepared a splendid text. His compassionate and lucid understanding of the aged permeates all sections. The two chapters he has written on anatomical aging changes and selection of the appropriate therapeutic environment for a patient demonstrate the geriatrician's role. Thirty-three other authors have contributed chapters on various system disorders, principles of drug treatment, anesthesia, roentgenographic aspects of aging, genetic influences, nursing care, and rehabilitation. Clearly, clinical concepts in geriatrics are