This book is designed to be 1) a resource book on diagnostic systems for informatics specialists; 2) a textbook for teachers or students in health or medical informatics training programs; and 3) a comprehensive introduction for clinicians, with or without expertise in the applications of computers in medicine, who are interested in learning about current developments in computer-based diagnostic systems. In recent years, it has become obvious that other health professionals, in addition to physicians, have needs for decision support and that the issues raised in this book apply to a broad range of clinicians. The book includes chapters by nationally and internationally recognized experts on the design, evaluation and application of these systems who examine the impact of practitioner and patient use of computer-based diagnostic tools.

Clinical Decision Support Systems: Theory and Practice (Health Informatics)

Science & Math

Marion J. Ball

Mathematics

Springer London

Needle biopsy of the liver is now an accepted procedure in most  large hospitals, and surgeons and laparoscopists are more likely to  biopsy the liver under direct vision than in the past. Consequently,  increasing demands are being made on pathologists for rapid diagnosis.  This full colour atlas provides a practical guide to the  histopathological diagnosis of liver disorders, with particular  emphasis on clinicopathological correlation and the need for the  pathologist to be in full possession of all the available clinical  information. Although containing over 350 colour illustrations, the  book is more than just an atlas and each section includes a brief  description of the main clinical and pathological features of the  subject under discussion.  For this second edition, many chapters have been rewritten - e.g. on  viral hepatitis - and many new illustrations added. The book is  intended for the practising and trainee pathologist and the clinician  who performs liver biopsies, but will also be of value to  postgraduates, residents and students in other branches of medicine.

Atlas of Liver Pathology (Current Histopathology)

D. G. Wight

Health, Fitness & Dieting

The story of the benzodiazepines is a fascinating one: the synthesis of a long series of inert compounds and the abandonment of the project: months later, the renewal of the project and the discovery that this compound R05-0690 (Librium ®) was a sedative and muscle relaxant in laboratory animals: the recognition that its postulated structure was wrong and that it was in fact a member of an entirely new chemical class: the excitement caused by the discovery of the powerful taming effect of the drug in wild animals: the even greater excitement in medical circles when its dramatic anxiety relieving effects were cstablished in humans: the subsequent enormous world wide usc of drugs of the benzodiazepine group. I have reason to know the story well for during that period I worked in various capacities in research, marketing and manage ment in the British subsidiary of F. Hoffmann-Ia Roche. It was during this period that I became interested in whether dependence on benzodiazepines could occur and if so to what extent, but felt that this could be examined best from outside the concern. Having now retired from Roche back to academic medicine I have taken the opportunity to examine and analyse the evidence.

The Benzodiazepines: Use, overuse, misuse, abuse

John Marks

Handbook of Lithium Therapy

As a medical student in the 1930s, I remember well that a very clear line of distinction was drawn between physical illness and mental illness. Physical illness resulted from pathology which could be identified and studied in detail and the cause could often be deduced. Treatment thus was often specific and based upon a proper appreciation of underlying basic science. Mental illness, on the other hand, could not, it was believed, be based upon identifiable changes in basic science. It was literally 'all in the mind' and, occurring in the absence of causes that could be identified, analysed and remedied, had no treatment that could in any way be called specific. N ow it is all too easy, in Medicine, for a doctor to become so immersed in a specialty that he fails to notice how his colleagues in other specialties are faring and, through laziness, to miss advances even of fundamental importance in fields other than those in which he himself works. As a consultant surgeon, after W orId War II, although I realized the importance of keeping in touch with those medical specialties which appeared to have a common interface with my own surgical interests, such as general medi cine, gastro-enterology, hepatology and endocrinology, it did not occur to me that there was any pressing need to ask what was new in Psychological Medicine.

F. Neil Johnson

While this book is concerned with psychology let no reader believe that after studying it he or she will be a budding psychologist. Only those elements of psychology which are central to the adequate functioning of the professional in the health and allied caring services are covered. Many popular topics, such as intelligence, memory, concept formation, will not be found within the covers of this book. The objective of this book is to enable those professionals who have responsibility for the wellbeing, health, and care of others to develop insight into and to become more empathetic to the needs, motivations, feelings and behaviour of their charges. An ancillary objective is that the readers too might come to understand a little more about their own behaviour, particularly in relation to their work situation. Patients in hospital, children in residential care, the elderly in the old folks' home are all perceiving and thinking organisms, not merely interesting medical cases, a classical set of symptoms, a collection of statistics or a bulging case file. Every person whether professional or client is affected by the way others respond to them, by the feelings each has for the other, by the non-verbal signals of eye contact, smile, and voice tone, etc.

Essential Psychology

R.B. Burns

Psychology & Counseling

Throughout the history of mankind from primitive man to the present time, vitamin ddiciencies have been a major cause of death and disease. Pellagra, scurvy and beri-beri have decimated armies, ships' crews and even nations (Figure I). As late as 1925 the disease 'pernicious' anaemia caused by the ab­ sence of vitamin Bl2 within a person's body really lived up to its name. Although there were isolated instances of recognition of dietary deficien­ cies even a thousand years ago, the importance of dietary factors in the gene­ sis of these diseases was more widely recognized from the eighteenth century onwards and it was not until this century that the chemical structure of these factors was determined and the substances themselves synthesized. As the science of biochemistry has developed it has been found that the clinical manifestations of vitamin deficiency follow derangement of multiple metabolic functions. The majority of the vitamins in fact form specific co-en­ zymes in various chemical processes but at least one is converted within the body into a hormone. The commercial extraction and synthesis of the vitamins, which began mainly in the 1930S and 1940s, produced adequate quantities for a relief of vitamin detlciency diseases. The use of vitamins then became fashionable and dramatic cures were claimed for an ever increasing number of diseases.

A Guide to the Vitamins: Their Role in Health and Disease

This is the fourth volume of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) compiled from documents prepared in these laboratories in part fulfilment of the requirements of various Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) regulations and guidelines. SOPs have now become an everyday feature of work in most industrial and contract toxicology laboratories. They provide a written definition of the mechanics of unit operations which together comprise the framework for experiments in safety evaluation. Metabolic studies and analytical chemistry are closely linked to toxicology since they embody essential aspects of the overall assessment of product safety. Some authorities consider certain parts of these subjects to be outwith the scope of the GLP requirements but for the reasons stated this is contrary to our own view. We have tried where possible to define in SOP format for use in our own laboratories the unit operations involved in these disciplines and they form the basis of this volume. Some relevant material from previous volumes has been brought together in updated form and is also presented here for completeness. Dr I P Sword Managing Director Inveresk Research International Musselburgh EH21 7UB Scotland ix Introduction GENERAL 1. The Food and Drug Administration of the US Government published its Good Laboratory Practice Regulations for Non-Clinical Laboratory Studies in the Federal Register (22 December 1978). The Regulations are the culmin ation of a number of years of investigation into the standards to which safety evaluation studies were performed in laboratories in the USA.

Standard Operating Procedures Analytical Chemistry and Metabolism

A. W. Waddell I. P. Sword

This book is designed for use by medical students, nurses, young practitioners, internists, family physicians and all those initially involved with the problem of diagnostics. It is struc tured to provide a concise logical approach to the diagnosis of common illness and disorders in adults. The elucidation of an illness cause is not easy for the inexperienced. Although text books and guidance notes can be referred to for clarification of assembled thought - once a medical history has been taken - a system-orientated reference guide has considerable value for aiding and checking the logic of diagnosis. It is hoped that this book will fulfil that purpose. It could not have been written without the help of R. G. Brackenridge's Essential Medicine (1979, MTP, Lancaster, England), and J. Fry's Common Diseases (1979, MTP, Lancaster, England), to which the reader is referred and to which generous acknow ledgement is made. The tables of Differential Diagnosis that follow Chapters 3-7 are adapted from some that have appeared in Handbook of Differential Diagnosis, vols 1-3, published by Rocom Press, Hoffman La Roche Inc. , New Jersey, 1968-1974 - an invaluable publication now unfortun ately out of print, and permission to do so is gratefully apprec- 7 8 DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS iated. Finally without the stimulus and encouragement of Mr David Bloomer (MTP) and the particular assistance of Mrs J. C. Robinson, this book would never have been written. ALEXANDER D. G.

Differential Diagnosis: A guide to symptoms and signs of common diseases and disorders, presented in systematic form

A.D.G. Gunn

... there is scarcely any agent which can be taken into the body to which some individuals will not get a reaction satisfactory or pleasurable to them, persuading them to continue its use even to the point of abuse ... Eddy (1965) Dependence is one of the major problems of our modern society both in industrialized and developing nations. There is, however, nothing new in man's dependence on drugs. For many centuries past, there can be few people throughout the world who do not 'overuse', 'misuse' or 'abuse' some drugs. For many the drugs that are 'overused' are caffeine (from tea or coffee), nicotine (from tobacco) or alcohol (from beer, wine or spirits), all socially accepted normal ingredients of everyday life in most communities. For a smaller group 'misuse' concerns commonly prescribed medical substances, such as barbiturates, amphetamines. For an even smaller group there is the less socially acceptable 'abuse' of specific drugs such as morphine and related analgesics, cannabis, or hallucinogens.

The Dependence Phenomenon

M. M. Glatt

The Health Care Manual: A Family Guide to Self-Care and Home Medicines

John, Fry

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