The wealth of new information concerning the kidney may not have completed the conquest of renal disease, but it has inspired a number of new books, not all of uniformly scholarly attainment. The present volume, however, stands out as a monumental accomplishment, one that can be read by any devoted nephrophile with comfort and satisfaction. Its knowledgeable contributors from several continents write with authority on their own selective fields; every conceivable facet of the subject, and one or two somewhat extraneous ones, are well covered.
In various chapters the convoluted ramifications of renal dynamics are pursued relentlessly up limb and down tubule. The knotty problems of glomerular function are unraveled and neatly retied. Even the relatively recent principles of Homer Smith are in part superseded by such marvelous mechanisms as "sodium pumps," "cross current multipliers," "stop flows," and "feed backs." Oliver's footnote quotation from Samuel Johnson, "Why walk a distance