This is a welcome book for many reasons. Though not a physician, Leon Chesley, PhD, has devoted a lifetime to the single-minded, meticulous, and unremitting study of patients with toxemias of pregnancy. His follow-up studies of pregnant women who gave birth at the Margaret Hague Hospital are classics.
The monograph is especially useful for its wonderful and unique historical compilation. The emphasis on simple, tried-and-true measures for the treatment of eclampsia (magnesium sulfate; morphine for sedation) is wise and refreshing in an era of polypharmacy that sometimes ends up by harming the patient more than helping her. There is an excellent and sensible chapter on the assessment of fetal status. Changes in standard renal function tests are reviewed as well as the physiology of renin, angiotensin, and aldosterone as they relate to pregnancy and pregnancy toxemias. The exciting observations of N. F. Grant are given proper emphasis, showing that it