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Handbook of Neurosurgery

Article in Otology & neurotology: official publication of the American Otological Society, American Neurotology Society [and] European Academy of Otology and Neurotology · July 2011
DOI: 10.1097/MAO.0b013e318211779b

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the lab to developing an understanding of the Care of the Medical Patient, and vari-
cell culture. ous other handbooks related to the partic-
Now in its fourth edition, Culture of ular discipline studied by the rack holding
Animal Cells presents the techniques, that coat up. Indeed, the clinical hand-
equipment, practices, and principles need- books serve as an invaluable guide to the
ed to place animal cells into tissue culture. nascent physicians, where they can look
In its comprehensiveness, it provides tech- up very useful tidbits on clinical pathology
nical explanations that help eliminate and therapeutics through a simple flip
some of the guess work in tissue culture. through the pages. Neurosurgery is no
This book is written for people with exception.
no previous experience, as it provides a The classic neurosurgical clinical
concise general background pertinent to handbook, oddly known as the Handbook
the growth of animal cells in tissue culture of Neurosurgery, has been revised and
such as reagents, lab layout, necessary updated in a new fifth edition. Most
equipment, water quality, selection of notable is the collaboration with Thieme
media and growth chambers, steps starting Medical Publishers for this edition, broad-
with whole animal material, observing and ening the scope of distribution. Previous
staining cultured cells, and common cont- editions had experimented with splitting
aminants. the handbook into two volumes, one cov-
Finally, this book is an excellent ering the theoretical aspects of neuro-
choice for the serious beginner. Its well- surgery, the other handling the
laid out and comprehensive chapters will clinical/therapeutic "need-to-know" mate-
certainly allow even experts benefit rial. The thinking was that one would be
because of its recent publication. Labs that used for casual perusal during the copious
intensively make use of cell culture, will amounts of free time available to the neu-
find Culture of Animal Cells a helpful ref- rosurgical resident, and the other would be
erence and great training source. used for more daily clinical activity, i.e.
the thing jammed into the coat pocket. The
James Park author and publisher in this edition have
Yale School of Medicine decided to go back to the original single
volume format (hmm, I wonder if one of
the previous volumes consistently
Handbook of Neurosurgery, Fifth remained unread...). Although making for
Edition. By Mark S. Greenberg. New a more bulky book, and more sore neck
York: Thieme Medical Publishers, muscles, the single volume format works
2001. 975 pp. $69.00
better because you get the theory and treat-
Walk into any typical academic hospi- ment in one neat package (useful for those
tal, and you will find a barage of residents on-the-spot pimping sessions). There has
with their coat pockets brimming with apparently been a fair amount of pruning
large masses of seemingly useless paper. in order to make a more wieldy product,
Their coats weigh heavy on their backs, but in my opinion, the author has done a
and you see from the looks on their faces decent job of retaining the necessary
that they at some point all stopped to think detail. Much of what is left out is discus-
how they could find a way to add more sion of various surgical procedures, which
pockets onto their coats/paniers. In this Thieme will be consolidating and putting
tradition you will see the coveted editions out as a separate book by different authors:
of the Washington Manual of Medical Fundamentals of Operative Neurosurgery
Therapeutics, the Ferri Practical Guide to by Connolly, Choudri, and Huang.
 Book reviews 363

The book is very comprehensive, cov- text. Greenberg places the drug informa-
ering virtually every aspect of neuro- tion, often including mechanism of action
surgery in thirty-two chapters. The first and side effects, right where one would
two chapters are on general care and neu- want to see it during the therepeutic dis-
rology, respectively. I found this to be cussions. In addition, the book is rife with
quite a good set up for the rest of the book, excellent references which in and of them-
and also serves to make the book a more selves would make for a decent reading
complete handbook for the neurosurgical list for a neurosurgical resident. To sum
resident who will also be managing up, this is a book which is definitely near
patients on the floor. The remainder of the and dear to the hearts of many a neurosur-
book focuses on the various neurosurgical gical resident, and it continues to improve
diseases. upon itself with each new edition.
There are several aspects to the orga-
nization of the book that I found very use- Khashayar Farsad
ful. For one, most topics include discus- Yale School of Medicine
sions on the clinical presentation and find-
ings of a disease, its etiology and epidemi-
ology, and the treatments and prognoses.
This really helps to put each topic into per- Brain, Nerves, Muscles, and
Electricity: My Life in Science. By
spective with respect to where it falls in Wladimir Theodore Liberson, Edited
the spectrum of neuro-related disease. by Robert Cohn and Cathryn W.
Moreover, there is a consistent emphasis Liberson. New York: Smyrna Press,
on the findings in the literature, which 1999. 187 pp. $15.00.
emphasizes not only the empirical and Following his death in 1994, Dr.
academic nature of neurosurgery, but also Liberson's widow, Dr. Cathryn Liberson,
serves to remind the clinician that the deci- with the help of Dr. Robert Cohn, com-
sions made are often not based on hard and piled his memoirs to provide this autobio-
fast rules, but rather, are a culmination of graphical glimpse into the life of one of
the available data. For example, in a dis- the pioneers in neurophysiologic science.
cussion of acute transverse myelitis, we The work details a life that began in 1904
learn that from a study where sixty-two Russia and spanned the globe, finally set-
people were analyzed, ninety-seven per- tling in American medical academia.
cent of the patients presented with some Dr. Liberson recounts his opportunity
form of muscular weakness, while thirteen to study under such greats as Pavlov and
percent of the patients presented with the proteges of Wedensky, often remem-
nuchal rigidity. We are left to decide for bered as "the first eclectromyographer."
ourselves the validity and weight we Because of the political environment that
choose to put on these findings, and this evolved in Russia after the Bolshevik rev-
emphasizes the relatively unknown nature olution, Dr. Liberson was forced to flee to
of many of these conditions where we only Paris in 1924. There he worked as a neu-
have a relatively small number of patients rophysiologist under the tutelage of Dr.
who have ever been studied. Lapicque. It is here that Dr. Liberson
Another great feature of the handbook enters the field of diagnostic and therapeu-
is the inclusion of drug information at the tic medicine and more importantly the
end of the relevant topic. Some handbooks burgeoning science of electroencephalog-
I have seen choose to add a pharmacopeia raphy. Among his many contributions to
at the very end of the book, which leaves the development of the principles of elec-
you toggling back and forth through the troencephalography, Dr. Liberson

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