Exploration Medicine, designed to prevent many of the problems of disease while on expedition, also provides a handbook of elementary treatment for those conditions which do occur. In the book, a permanent record of a symposium held in England in 1962, a wide variety of subjects is discussed, from the building of privies to the technique of cardiac massage. Problems of hot and cold climate, high altitude, and existence on and under the sea all receive extensive attention.
The editors planned the book to aid both the average expedition member and the physician. This difficult feat is accomplished with fairly uniform success. Even when, as in the chapter on "High Altitudes," the discussion turns to the equations and data of respiratory physiology, the nonphysician can delete these portions and still gain much useful information from the chapter.
The subtitle of the book is apt, for it is a practical guide