Most of the 112 chapters written by 124 contributors in this first American multivolume text are good; some are excellent, and a few fail to meet the standards implied in the subtitle "a comprehensive guide to the diagnosis and management of neurosurgical problems." The authors include well-known surgical and medical neurologists, radiologists, basic scientists, and specialists in ophthalmology, genitourinary surgery, otology, and other fields of allied interest. The subjects cover the major (and some minor) fields of neurosurgical interest, with long sections on neuroradiology and other diagnostic procedures, such as tests for eye, ear, and brain function. Anesthesia, procedures to change the psychologic attitudes of patients, rehabilitation, complications, physiology and homeostasis, biochemistry, and, of course, operative techniques are covered.
Divergent views are presented by their proponents to avoid bias from a single author. There is, hence, no unified viewpoint, and one has to look in scattered places (luckily, there is