Journal of Infection (1981) 3, 295

Book review

Infectious Disease: Epidemiology and Clinical Practice. 3rd ed. A. B. Christie (Pp. 1066; £37.50). Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, 1980.

Good textbooks, like vintage wine, mature as they grow older and this third edition of Infectious Diseases by A. B. Christie is no exception. The book consists of an arbitrary selection of elegant essays on some of the important infectious diseases affecting the general community. Dr Christie's knowledge is encyclopedic and has been acquired by a lifetime' s study of his specialty in the United Kingdom and the Third World.

The topics selected have been covered most comprehensively in an erudite and scholarly manner, though the leisurely pace of the text may be too slow for some modern tastes accustomed to tabulated facts and bald summaries. The book encompasses many of the important diseases of temp- erate climes and some of the minor infections of the tropics but does not touch upon malaria, amoebiasis or other important infections, which have loomed so large in recent times as a result of the enormous expansion in air travel. With such omissions it is surprising that smallpox still receives a prominent place in this latest edition. In a textbook which has already expanded to more than 1000 pages it is understandable that hospital- acquired infections have not been included.

In most chapters Dr Christie has assessed the evidence in a balanced and impartial manner, while he enlivens the discussion with personal reminis- cences and has no hesitation in expressing his own preferences. However, his views on t reatment in the chapter on bacterial meningitis--always a con- troversial subjec t - -seem rather old-fashioned and out-of-sympathy with current practice. Is intrathecal medication still widely used and do many physicians give two-hourly injections of penicillin intravenously; surely ampicillin has relinquished its challenge to chloramphenicol as the first choice of t reatment for H. influenzae meningitis. One gains the impression that Dr Christie is too inclined to indulge in the luxury of semantic disserta- tions. In the chapter on infectious mononucleosis undue prominence is given to the academic difference between protean symptomatology and common complications while the practical problem of post-infectious-mononucleosis debility is very much underplayed.

However, these trifling criticisms do not detract from Dr Christie's magnificent achievement in writing this classical British textbook of infecti- ous diseases and one can only admire and wonder at such dedicated toil and meticulous scholarship in keeping abreast of the latest advances and compil- ing such a comprehensive list of references. The third edition can be recom- mended wholeheartedly and no library should be without a copy.

R. T. D. Emond