Clinical Pathology

Abstract

IN any branch of knowledge actively progressing in many divergent directions it is of course difficult to keep the whole field of investigation in proper perspective, and the very keenness of the workers in the different divisions tends to keep them immersed and somewhat solitary in their own grooves. This disadvantage specially concerns medicine, in which it is most desirable that the clinicians and the laboratory workers should be m, close and constant touch with each other; to some extent this is effected by clinical pathology, and the clinical pathologist should be the equal and companion of the clinical physician. One of the deservedly best known textbooks on this important subject is Dr. Charles E. Simon's, first published in 1896, the tenth edition of which is now before us. During its life of more than a quarter of a century, it has served as a kind of index of the extent of the subject, and in this connexion it may be noted that the present edition is more than double the size of the first. Dr. Simon, who speaks with the authority of a former professor of clinical pathology, a post he has given up for that of. lecturer in medical zoology in the School of Hygiene and Public Health of the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, is emphatic in his opinion that even now too little attention is paid to clinical pathology by hospital physicians, and that accordingly students and general practitioners are without an accurate idea of the value of this means of diagnosis. Dr. Simon advocates the establishment in every medical school of a chair of clinical pathology, and that its occupant should in every respect rank equally with the clinical teachers.

A Manual of Clinical Diagnosis by Means of Laboratory Methods, for Students, Hospital Physicians and Practitioners.

By Dr. Charles E. Simon. Tenth edition, enlarged and thoroughly revised. Pp. xxiv + 1125 + 23 plates. (London: Henry Kimpton, 1922.) 42s. net.