This unusual book is a collection of 17 chapters by 25 authors on a variety of topics that have in common some aspect of the right ventricle. Topics include cardiopulmonary physiology, congenital heart disease, pulmonary disease, myocardial infarction, cardiac trauma, and postoperative care in cardiac surgery.
The unevenness that seems inevitable in multiauthored books on specialized subjects is evident here, but this can be an advantage as well as a disadvantage. In contrast to highly organized comprehensive textbooks, where strict editorial guidance enforces brevity, some authors in books like this have the opportunity to expand their chapters into mini-monographs that go far to justify the enterprise as a whole.
For example, the chapter by Isner on right ventricular myocardial infarction (42 pages, 34 illustrations, 152 references) is a particularly rich and valuable contribution. It describes the pathology of this condition on the basis of a fourpoint grading system for the