Review books tend to be passive in nature, reciting the obvious and adding few new thoughts. The Pediatric Patient, 1968 is no exception. In the pattern of earlier editions, it contains a general discussion rooted in the basic sciences, followed by selected, specialty-oriented topics.
This year the text includes a technical presentation of enzymology, including the historical background of medical interest in enzymes. The section on orthopedic problems offers little but a review of physical diagnosis. The most interesting and useful chapter concerns neurology, with sections discussing the "at risk" infant, the minimal brain damage syndrome, intracranial tumors, and Wilson's disease. The last chapter in the book is a collection of short, wellreferenced statements of opinion on diverse subjects such as sports for children and the estimation of gestational age of an infant. The book suffers from the differing levels of quality of chapters and is not, in general, easily