This is a book guaranteed to warm the heart of any clinician. Editor Barondess has gathered 21 outstanding clinician-investigators to write 13 chapters covering a gamut of clinical syndromes. The orientation is practical with each entity discussed from the aspect of a clinician approaching a patient. It starts with history, physical findings, and laboratory supplementation. There is no discussion of therapy. Each chapter is a thoroughgoing, updated essay with all facets of the work-up being integrated.
The first four chapters are concerned with cardiovascular diseases: mitral regurgitation, aortic regurgitation, primary myocardial disease, and essential hypertension. The middle chapters offer detailed delineation of the pathophysiology and clinical aspects of specific symptoms: unconsciousness, diarrhea, weakness, and fever. There is a chapter on acute inflammatory diseases of the lungs, another on unresolved pneumonias. Hematology is represented by polythemia vera and purpura, metabolism by diffuse demineralization of bone. Each assay is a comprehensive and