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Vincent C. Kelley, MD, writes in his preface, "This book was conceived in innocence but delivered only after a prolonged period of gestation and difficult labor." Unfortunately, the conceptus, or perhaps I should use the plural for indeed there are three volumes, is postmature. The date of the "last menstrual period" is not stated, but one can make a fair guess. There is a scarcity of references of later date than 1970, and clues to the date of conception are found in comments of the individual authors such as Frederick Hecht's, "The emphasis will be largely on the autosomal trisomies, a lesser role being given to the autosomal deletions, primarily because less was known about the deletion syndromes at the time this chapter was originally drafted." For the active student in the areas covered by the book, its most likely purchaser, this postmaturity and the price tag will be deterrents