doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee) (03/20/85)
I had posted a request to net.med asking for suggestions as to what
book I should buy to replace my 20-year old home medical reference.
There must be a hundred such books down at the ol' B. Dalton, so I
had hoped to narrow down the choices. I'd asked for books that
conformed to AMA dogma, and needn't cover childhood diseases.
I was taken by complete surprise that all 4 responses I received were
in total agreement. All recommended "The Merck Manual", from the
Merck, Sharp, and Dohme pharmaceutical company. Three respondents
noted that it tended to be a bit technical. One respondent also
felt that the book tends to "recommend intervention more often than
my physicians". One respondent also recommended the PDR (Physician's
Desk Reference) for prescription drug information.
So, thinking that there was no decision for me to make, I went to the
local bookstore and found that I *still* had to make a decision. It
seems that The Merck Manual is available in two formats -- a single-
volume hardcover, and a 2-volume (individually priced) paperback set.
Although one of the respondents had specifically mentioned the 2-volume
set, I bought the hardcover because the Prefaces indicated that the
contents were the same, the price would have been about the same, and
mostly because the store didn't have a decent copy of volume 1.
BTW, the current edition is the 14th Edition, copyrighted in 1982.
If you're not interested in my initial impressions, you can go on
to the next message now...
This book must be one of the best words-per-dollar buys around. :-)
For $20, I got a hard-cover book with almost 2500 pages of text
and over 100 pages of index. With this much material, it almost
*has* to be comprehensive. In order to fit 2600 pages into a
single, manageable volume, it is printed on "bible" paper -- very
thin but still fairly strong.
I spent most of a day paging through it. Nearly as I can tell, this
book is intended to serve as a "one-stop" reference manual for the
Family Practitioner, covering as much as possible in as much depth
as an FP might likely need. There are very few pictures or diagrams.
Medical terms are used profusely and without explanation. This is
understandable given the intended audience and the amount of material
to be covered in one volume.
Some of the sections are readable by the layman, while some require
more medical background than any non-professional is likely to have.
Most are somewhere in between those extremes, and a layman with some
knowledge of medical theory and terminology can get by, although I'd
recommend keeping a medical dictionary close at hand.
Personally, I'm going to hang onto my obsolete medical reference book
for its glossary, pictures, diagrams, and introductory material.
--
Doug Pardee -- Terak Corp. -- !{hao,ihnp4,decvax}!noao!terak!doug