Book Reviews

THOMAS WILLIS'S OXFORD LECTURES by K. DEWHURST Sandford Publications, Oxford 1980, £ 9.00 p. 181, figs. 19, ISBN 0 950 1528 46

During the last decades there has been a reassessment of Thomas Willis' works. Charles Sherrington was one of the first to emphasize Willis' fundamental contributions to modern neurology. So did Charles Symmonds in his Harveian oration in 1954 and Wilder Penfield in the tercentenary edition 1664-1964 of Willis' Anatomy of the Brain and Nerves. As the first use of the term neurology occurred, now 300 years ago, in the 1681 translation of Willis' Cerebri Anatome (1664), this first edition of Thomas Willis' Oxford Lectures by psychiatrist and medical historian Kenneth Dewhurst is very appropriate.

The series of about thirty four lectures was given by Willis at Oxford between 1661 and 1664 in the most brilliant phase of his career. The translation of the lectures is based on the notebooks of John Locke and on those of Willis' chief assistant Richard Lower, who attended all the lectures. The main chapter, covering Willis' lectures (100 pages, manuscript sources and notes included), is preceded by a section on Willis' biography based on much new, and hitherto, unpublished material.

This scholarly documented and well illustrated book, containing Willis' ideas from the time before his published writings, is a precious source for those who are interested in the history ofneurology. The edition is limited to 750 copies.

B.P.M. Schulte

COMPUTER TOMOGRAPHIE DES KOPFES by E.W. RADI~. B.E. KENDALL and J.F. MOSELEY

Georg Thieme Verlag, 1980, ISBN 3 13 5826 01 5 p. 178. figs. 128, DM 24,80.

This pocketbook concerns computed tomography of the brain. It has been written by the neuroradiologists of the Lysholm Radiological Department of the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queen Square. London. They have the longest period of experience with this diagnostic modality: one of the first CT-scanners was placed in their department. Many interested radiologists, neurologists and neurosur- geons, from all over the world, have observed there for the first time, the miracle of CT.

From the beginning they have critically evaluated this new mode of investigation and correlated the outcomes with clinical, surgical and pathological findings. They have published their experiences regularly over years. With such a group of authors we put our expectations high.

In almost 170 pages of the pocketbook size they have really succeeded in writing an excellent intro- duction to cerebral computed tomography. The book is translated into the German language.

The book starts with a technical introduction, followed by a presentation of normal CT anatomy,joined by an interpretation manual of pathological entities. The specific part of the book presents the diagnostic cluea of pathology in the chapters on tumour, vascular disturbances, degenerative diseases, infections, congenital malformations, phacomatoses and leukodystrophy. Orbital pathology is presented too as are the effects of head trauma and the consequences of operative treatment. The content of these chapters is