Occupational Medicine 2011;61:377
BOOK REVIEW
doi:10.1093/occmed/kqr115
Hunter’s Disease of Occupations
Edited by Peter Baxter, Tar-Ching Aw, Anne Cockroft, Paul
Durrington and J. Malcolm Harrington. Published by Hodder
Arnold, London, 10th edition, 2010. ISBN-13: 978 0 340 9
41669. Price £200.
New editions of Hunter’s do not come round very often,
and there have been 10 years between the 9th and 10th ed-
itions. First published in 1955, the first five editions arrived
during a period of ,20 years compared to the next five that
have taken over 30 years. This suggests that it is becoming
harder to revise these textbook behemoths despite or per-
haps because of the ever more rapid advancement of re-
search, its publication and dissemination in a digital
age. Weighing in at just under 4 kg, this is indeed a gargan-
tuan tome, befitting of a serious speciality. It has 107 au-
thors each contributing an average of 12 pages, arranged in
eight parts each of which is divided into between two and
five sections. All the contributors are to be congratulated,
especially the editors, because other than a free book and
seeing your name in print in the most famous textbook of
occupational medicine, this is a huge and increasing labour
with relatively little material reward.
Later editions of Hunters have moved away from the
historical aspect of our speciality, something in which
earlier editions excelled and included some wonderful
photographs and drawings. This deficiency should now
have been remedied as the book reports having its own
website with access to Hunter’s original introductory
chapters and a selection of over 350 photographs from
his personal collection. At the time of writing, this website
was not operational and without any indication as to when
it might be. This facility would be useful as the quality of
the pictures and drawings throughout the book is at times
poor, particularly in the first chapter dealing with the his-
tory and development of occupational medicine. In fact,
Ó The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Occupational Medicine.
All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com
the overall quality and feel of the book is less than I would
expect for a volume of this importance and price but I sus-
pect there may not be many more editions in hard version.
I was, however, able to successfully download the e ver-
sion which works very well and is now usefully on my lap-
top. I also managed to get a passably functional version to
work on my smart-phone which like the e version usefully
allows you to copy images and photographs as well as
tables. The smart-phone version is harder to navigate
around but does offer yet further flexibility and many of
the references will take you directly through to the source.
Downloaded from http://occmed.oxfordjournals.org/ at Univ of Iowa-Law Library on June 27, 2015
In terms of the actual book, I must confess to not hav-
ing read it from cover to cover and clearly this is not a book
with that aim in mind. I did test drive the chapter on
vibration and found it comprehensive, useful and thor-
ough with clear recommendations. Each section of the
book has a key points box at the end. The vibration chap-
ter was UK orientated and I could see possible differences
in practice compared to other parts of the world. Using
the book to find answers to specific practice points that
had taxed me recently also proved helpful and sensible
although one particular query regarding urinary cobalt
levels was frustrating in that they quoted units in grams
per litre which does not help when UK laboratories quote
in millimoles per litre. I also tried out the mental health
section and found the subsection on ‘Work, stress and
sickness absence: a psychosocial perspective’ fascinating,
relevant and thought provoking, offering a totally com-
mon sense approach to the types of patient issues that
present to the occupational physician on a daily basis.
On the other hand, as the authors themselves state, the
evidence base for this particular topic is lacking.
It has been argued that by the time information appears
in a textbook, it is at least 10 years out of date. So while the
digital format of the latest Hunter’s overcomes the porta-
bility and accessibility issues, the increasing length of time
between editions means that the risk of the information be-
ing non-relevant is also increased. This book is a fine
achievement, but I do wonder how many more editions
there will be in future and in what format they will be. Fu-
ture Hunters (and maybe this one) will certainly be inter-
esting and useful historical reference works but their
relevance to current practice may be less clear. For the time
being, however, Hunters is worth having and remains an
essential item in the occupational physician’s office.
Rating
wwww (Essential for the bookshelf or laptop)
John Hobson