Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (1999) 43, 849-850
© 1999 The British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy
Book review |
Slide Atlas of Infectious Diseases, Volume I, AIDS, 2nd edition
G. L. Mandell, Ed. Harcourt Brace, 1998. ISBN 0443-07554-9. £500.00.
Consultant Physician, Southmead Hospital, Department of Medicine, Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol BS10 5NB, UK
Volume I of the Slide Atlas of Infectious Diseases addresses one of the major globalhealth issues of the current age, namely HIV infection. The Atlas' s approach to HIV infection is encyclopaedic in scope and magisterial in style. There are 33 contributors, all renowned experts in their field of HIV medicine, 20 chapters, each referenced and supplemented by a selected bibliography and 500 high quality transparency slides. The subjects included within this volume include the epidemiology, natural history and prevention of HIV infection, basic virology and immunopathology, 14 chapters dealing with clinical manifestations and two ultimate chapters describing the principles and practice of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Every slide in this volume has a corresponding written vignette which expands and explains the data or clinical appearances projected.
This physically large and slightly clumsy volume will be used primarily by clinical teachers as a resource centre and in libraries as a self-directed learning tool. Given its high cost, this volume is not aimed at the individual clinician as a purchase for their personal library. The material is ideal as a framework or core for teaching programmes, for example, the didactic teaching of specialist registrars in GU medicine and will be used to provide supplementary material for undergraduate lecture courses. In addition, it will be of especial value to younger and less experienced HIV physicians, in particular those who have not experienced at first hand the ravages of this disease in the pre-antiretroviral therapy era. Such colleagues will be afforded a very accurate and cogent retrospective on this disease as it was, and, I hope and trust, will never be again.
My criticisms are few. It is inevitable that, given the speed of scientific development and the depth of understanding of HIV disease in all its virological and immunopathological dimensions, this volume and its references will quickly become passé. The most current references are 1996 and bring one up to date at the time of the 11th International Conference on AIDS held in Vancouver in 1996. Users seeking up-to-date information and guidance on HAART will be better served by accessing one of the many quality HIV oriented Web sites.
There is little, if any, material in this volume pertaining to HIV disease in the under-developed world where 90% of HIV disease exists. The principles of HIV medicine may be the same, but the clinical expressions can be very different in the tropical context. Some of the slides have triple and quadruple elements which appear crowded and thus indistinct. The pages within the ring binder folder do not turn easily and access to the centre and latter chapters can be clumsy and awkward.
These minor criticisms apart I regard this volume as an excellent contribution to the resources of busy clinical teachers. I propose to use my copy as the framework on which the teaching of specialist registrars in GU medicine will be based. I accept fully that additional information, in particular data pertaining to antiretroviral therapy, will be required from more up-to-date sources. In the meantime I cannot wait to access and use the electronic version of this useful volume.
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