American College of Surgeons Care of the Surgical Patient

Abstract

When asked to describe a typical American medical textbook, most of us have the identical image in mind, for such books have a certain predictable sameness these days. They are large, bulky, hardbound, contain a great deal of information usually packed into small type, and are filled with black-and-white line drawings or gray reproductions of x-ray films. It is against this background that these new loose-leaf bound volumes from Scientific American have appeared, and they are a delight indeed. They show their lineage from the best of the pages of the monthly<i>Scientific American</i>magazine and the<i>Scientific American Medicine</i>textbook. These two volumes have been published under the auspices of the American College of Surgeons Committee on Pre- and Postoperative Care. The list of contributors is a Who's Who of academic surgery in the United States today. Volume one covers emergency care, with major sections on the intensive care