BOOK REVIEWS

“Biomedical Instrumentation and Measurements” (Second edition) by L.

Cromwell, F. J. We&e!! and E. A. Pfeiffer, Prentice-Hall Inc., New Jersey,
U.S.A., 1980, ISBN o-13-076448-5. 5lO+xvi pp. (214.25).

Most physicians and surgeons, certainly those with day-to-day responsibility for
treating patients, tend to drift into handling diagnostic and therapeutic gadgets,
with a very patchy idea of the basic theory behind their design and con-
struction. Doubtless this is why equipment is bought in such a haphazard way
and so often never seems to work properly after its first repair.
For such people this book is to be thoroughly recommended as a reference
manual, explaining both the basic data to be measured and the machine
assemblies to do the measuring. It is very comprehensive and covers car-
diology, respiratory function, electroencephalography and electromyography,
intensive-care monitoring, bio-telemetry, radiology and radio-isotopes, clinical
laboratory equipment, and, to be thoroughly up-to-date, computer applications
to instrumentation, including the use of microprocessors. Moreover, the first
four chapters deal with general aspects of instrumentation, including the use of
transducers and electrodes.
So for anyone looking for a concise lucid account of a topic like cardiac
pacemakers, EEG measurements or cofnputerised axial tomography, this is the
answer. Undoubtedly there are some minor misprints, and the purist might be
slightly irritated at some of the medical simplification which are obviously
made with non-graduates (medical) in mind. But these are very minor quibbles.
The price is admittedly rather daunting, so potential buyers will no doubt
browse carefully before making up their minds.

J. H. MITCHELL

Medical Imaging Techniques (Monograph No. 28), edited by B. W. Watson,

Peter Peregrinus, London, 1979 (fl4.50 in the U.K., f 17.00 elsewhere),

This is the latest volume in a series of monographs on Medical Electronics and

consists of monographs 28-33 which are devoted to Medical Imaging Tech-
531
Int. J. Bio-M&al comprfing (11)(1980)531-532
@I Elsevier/Nortb-Holland
Scientific
Publishers
Ltd.