Current Antibiotic Therapy

competent to speak on hospitaf advances in Ulster without reference to this book; it should be in every doctor's library. It is an accurate unbiased survey of the first 75 years of this hospital when finances had to be found and fought for and when as yet the State had no control. Finally a book is often enhanced by its format, and Dr. Calwell is to be congratulated on the lay out and his choice of illustrations. Messrs. Brough, Cox & Dunn Ltd., the printers, have taken special care that this book will be a credit to them and to the Belfast Medical School. THIS is a pleasant book to read with a good layout and categorisation, though a subindex at the beginning might have been a useful addition. It has the advantage of being a small book, and would be useful for a reference book, rather than a teaching book. It has been written mainly for medical students, but could be useful to others though a preliminary knowledge of the subject is often necessary. The diagrams are clear and useful. The discussion on the treatment of some diseases is at times a little vague, and therefore it is assumed that the student has a basic knowledge of the treatment concerned, as in diabetes and coeliac disease. There is not enough detail regarding treatment to make the book useful for reference in this respect. However, I do feel the book contains much useful dtiled information which is well presented. IT is difficult enough to keep up-to-date in any field of drug therapy these days in spite of the complaints of the pharmaceutical industry that Government regulations are restricting the introduction of new agents. The antibiotic field is particularly difficult because we are still discovering the antibiotics that microorganisms have been using for millions of years while at the same time we are learning the elaborate defences that other microorganisms can build up against these antibiotics. There are four ways in which doctors can learn the drugs used in this field. There is the standard textbook which has a new edition every 3-5 years, there is the report of the symposium, there are the original papers and there are review articles. Although the standard textbook is ideal for the beginner it tends to be too heavy and long winded for anything but occasional reference use and is too often out of …