Cardiac Clinics

Were the technique outlined in this neat little manual meticulously followed, a very high proportion of instructive anatomical specimens would be produced. Essentially it presents the method of Ghon which pursues a middle course between the en bloc dissections of Rokitansky and the piecemeal method of Virchow. The elementary surgical principle that nothing may be cut before it is seen is employed and the organs are prepared in groups with their appurtenant vessels and nodes. Particularly commendable is the author's insistence on careful examination of the breast tissue, a procedure too often neglected. There is a valuable appendix comprised of the necropsy protocols of an adult and of an infant. Since the book is designed primarily for the beginner who, it may be presumed, has not yet learned to be flexible to the exigencies of the case, more emphasis might have been placed on desirable deviations from the routine, such as preserving the continuity of the aorta in cases of congenital heart disease. Also the necessity for making a much more thorough examination of the lungs than is ordinarily done is insufficiently emphasized. A discussion of instruments and of the methods of preserving gross material in its pristine colors in the manner for which the author himself is famous, would not have been amiss. Valuable, too, would have been a presentation of standards for extensive and accurate anthropometry, and of the procedures to be followed in medicolegal cases. Minor errors, e.g., "their" for "there" on p. 71, are few. It may be objected that the "anatomic diagnosis" of Case I contains a statement of a process ("thrombosis of left renal artery") rather than of a morphological finding. Although the text is not illustrated, it is sufficiently clear and concise to be readily followed. AVERILL A. LIEBOW.