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The student is required in his introductory clinical course to learn an extensive new vocabulary as he masters the techniques of examining the patient. A new book, An Introduction to Surgery: 100 Topics, has appeared which should make this exciting, sometimes traumatic, learning experience more enjoyable and should speed the acquisition of fundamentals on which to build. Elmslie and Ludbrook have written this series of essays to "sustain the student" during his first year of clinical work. The essays are short, admittedly superficial statements covering a wide range of subjects from the clinical interview to fractures to the pathophysiology of jaundice. They are designed to offer a basis for understanding and a stimulus to proceed promptly to a more extensive exposition of the standard text. Topics are dealt with in a fashion reminiscent of the explanatory summation a good clinical instructor would offer his students at the end of a