Book Reviews and Books Received
Medical Aspects of Harsh Environments, Volumes 1 and 2.
Medical Aspects
of Harsh Environments, Volume 1.
Kent B. Pandolf, PhD and Robert E. Burr, MD.
Textbooks of Military Medicine. Washington, DC: Borden Institute, Office of the
Surgeon General, US Army Medical Department, 2001, 609 pp., illus., index,
$67.00.
ISBN: 0-16-05107-6.
Medical Aspects of Harsh Environments, Volume 2.
Kent B. Pandolf, PhD and Robert E. Burr, MD.
Textbooks of Military Medicine. Washington, DC: Borden Institute, Office of the
Surgeon General, US Army Medical Department, 2002, 595 pp., illus., index,
$67.00.
ISBN: 0-16-051184-4.
These two volumes are new additions to the Textbooks of
Military Medicine series, and provide a broad knowledge of physiology,
pathophysiology, and treatment for exposure to these harsh environments.
Although these volumes are written with the military physician in mind, many
physiologists may find these textbooks quite useful. For the seasoned
investigator, these books serve as a wonderful reference, while the new
investigator may find these texts useful as a resource and introduction for new
areas of potential research endeavors.
Volume 1 is an expansive work describing the medical
conditions caused by heat and cold exposure. This publication is broad in scope,
ranging from a historical perspective to current information on the physiologic
changes associated with heat or cold exposure, signs and symptoms at the time of
patient presentation, psychological issues, as well as prevention and treatment
of heat- and cold-related environmental illnesses and injuries. The first half
of volume 1, section I, addresses hot environments. In particular, there are
specific chapters discussing human adaptation to hot environments; physical
exercise in hot climates; pathophysiology of heatstroke; prevention of heat
illness; and clinical diagnosis, management, and surveillance of exertional heat
illness. Section II of volume 1 discusses injuries caused by cold-related
environments. To this end, there are chapters pertaining to physiological and
psychological responses to cold stress and hypothermia, prevention of cold
injuries, and clinical aspects of cold injury. In addition, there are chapters
about nonfreezing cold injury, treatment of accidental hypothermia, and
cold-water immersion injury. This is not a complete list of the chapters
presented, but is intended to illustrate the diversity of information offered.
Like volume 1, volume 2 is divided into two sections; section III discusses
topics associated with mountain settings, while section IV explores medical
issues related to special environments. Volume 2 describes the human adaptation
to these harsh environments, as well as the physical, cognitive, and
psychological effects of exposure. Although one would expect a discussion on
acute mountain sickness, high-altitude cerebral edema, and high-altitude
pulmonary edema, and section III delivers, there are also chapters on human
adaptation, physical performance, and neurological status at high terrestrial
altitudes. Section IV discusses the physiology and treatment pertaining to
special environments, including shipboard medicine, hyperbaric medicine of
diving, supersonic aviation, spaceflight, and chemical-biological protective
suits.
While much of the science is directly related to military
experience, there are significant portions of both volumes that come openly from
basic research laboratories. It is the mix of basic and applied physiology that
is presented that makes these volumes so useful. Graduate programs in
physiology, and medical programs offering an applied physiology curriculum, may
find this series beneficial, using the volumes as the textbooks for their
courses, or at least as a reference book. In addition, the extensive use of
illustrations and tables enables the reader to more fully understand the
discussion, and adds immensely to the overall value of the product. The summary
section of each chapter is informative and concise, while the references are
extensive. Finally, the list of acronyms and comprehensive index at the end of
each volume are very helpful, and references material in the both volumes. In
conclusion, if you conduct research or teach in the field of applied physiology,
you will find this series very practical and functional.
Thomas C. Herzig
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
Networking:
Communicating with Bodies and Machines in the Nineteenth Century: Studies in
Literature and Science
Laura Otis.
Ann Arbor, MI: Univ, of Michigan Press, 2002, 268 pp., illus, index, $49.50.
ISBN: 0-472-11213-9.
An observation in 1959 and later elaborated by C.P. Snow,
scientist, politician, and novelist, has been so universally and uncritically
accepted that it has become almost an axiom of modern mythology, i.e. that
“science” and “the humanities” are so far apart, that they are two separate
worlds, out of touch with each other.
If such is true in the 20th and 21st centuries (which I find
somewhat dubious), it certainly was farthest from the truth in the 19th century,
as so well and thoroughly documented by Otis in her scholarly work, Networking
(Communicating with Bodies and Machines in the Nineteenth Century). In my
personal acquaintance, in our epoch, there is a very prominent neuroscientist
who played in the Boston Symphony Orchestra in his “spare time”; a Nobel-prize
winning physiologist who is now a full time graphic artist; a former diva of the
Metropolitan Opera who is fully acquainted with large areas of bio-medical
research and practice; a Nobel-prize winning physicists and mathematician who
played the bongo drums professionally; the world’s leading researcher and
pioneer in kidney physiology, who won a Pulitzer prize for one of his novels;
and many more. I wish that Otis would bring her formidable scholarly talents to
examine the 20th century as thoroughly as she did the 19th century. To quote the
quite accurate description on the book jacket:
“The interdisciplinary sweep of the book is impressive, as it
focuses simultaneously on the literary works of George Eliot, Bram Stoker, Henry
Jones, and Mark Twain (among others), and on the scientific and technological
achievements by Luigi Galvani, Hermann con Helmholtz, Charles Babbage, Samuel
Morse, and Werner von Siemens.”
Quite surprising and refreshing is her more than passing
acquaintance with the famous controversy between the great neuroscientists (who
shared a Nobel Prize in 1906) Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramón y Cajal… and
others! In each case, she documents the scientists’ familiarity with the
literature of the day, and conversely, the deep appreciation of the current
(19th century) scientific works by the literati.
The other vast area of human endeavor, politics;
insufficiently examined by the politician, Snow; in its interrelationships with
science and literature, has been examined by Laura Otis in a previous work but
is noted to some extent in this book as well.
She carefully documents, in great detail, the two-way street
between literature and science (physiology, physics, chemistry, and much more).
Among many other examples, Helmholtz wrote Science and Culture; Mark Twain was
fascinated with the technologies of communication; telephone, telegraph,
telegraphy, even the scientific and pseudo-scientific areas of “mental
communication.” He spent much effort in debunking and parodying several
pseudo-sciences. In 1898, Twain even pre-invented television with his “telectroscope”!
Surprisingly, Otis does not mention the prescient science-fiction of Jules Verne
and H.G. Wells.
Hardly a handful of famous scientists and writers are missed
in this fascinating scholarly analysis, with endless details and quotations. Any
casual reader can open any page of this opus and find a treasure of detailed
(and well-written) examinations of the works of eminent figures, in each case,
illustrating the surprising and intimate familiarity of each with other
disciplines, today thought to be quite separate. The writer, George Eliot
(1809-1890) exhibited her vast knowledge of both science and industry.
The word “bionics” was not invented in the 19th century, but
Otis, without giving it a name, gives many examples of that type of
investigation, even in the mid-19th century. Morse and other early physicists
saw their wires as “nerves” while Helmholtz referred to nerves as “wires.”
A glance at the index of this remarkable book will reveal
many more names of famous scientists and well-known writers than could be listed
in this brief review. The text amply demonstrates their more than passing
familiarity with other than their own fields. Unhesitatingly and
enthusiastically, I recommend this book to any scientist, writer, artist,
historian, or lay person, as a reference source, but also as a “fun read,” in
part, or in whole.
Novera Herb Spector
American Institute for Neuroimmunomodulation
Carlsbad, CA
Human Physiology: From Cells to Systems, 5th Edition.
Instructor’s Edition.
Lauralee Sherwood.
Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole-Thomson Learning, 2004,
802 pp., illus., index, $116.95.
ISBN: 0-534-39503-1.
Insulin –Like Growth Factors.
Derek LeRoith, Walter Zumkeller, and Robert C. Baxter.
Medical Intelligence Unit.
New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2003, 498 pp., illus., index,
$165.00.
ISBN: 0-306-47846-3.
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