International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolatyngologp, 15 (1988) 295-305 Elsevier

295

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Karger, Bade, 1987, ISBN 3-8055-5551-3.

‘This monograph, published in 1987, is the annual report of the French Society of Otolaryngology and Cervicofacial pathology. The five authors are distinguished French Otologists from, respectively, Nancy, Grenoble, Paris, (The Publishers have failed to include any of this information i

The subject is treated seriously, in considerable However, apart from dry analysis and review mat senior practicing Qtologists frequently breaks through with sound advice for their colleagues and for those training in the field.

There are seven main sections, after a necessary chapter defining terms and techniques. Two chapters deal in depth with pathology and pathogenesis. The latter, long enough to an apologetic comment by the authors, is a meticulously and impartially corn review article.

There is a brief and straightforward chapter on clinical evaluation, in which the limited use of radiology in uncomplicated cases is dealt tersely and with due mention of cost. The next chapter, on complications, is full of sound practical advice coupled with a balanced view of the literature.

Surgery for cholesteatoma is dealt with in several parts. First the pros and cons of open and closed techniques are listed and the standard operations described with clear diagrams and useful hints. There is an additional section dealing with petrous apex cholesteatoma. ‘Indications’ is an interesting chapter. The authors wrote to experienced Gtologists in a number of countries asking them which technique they use and when. The replies show, not surprisingly, three types of behaviour. One group nearly always used closed technique, one group nearly always open and a third group vary their technique to fit the individual case. The five authors conclude by pooling their own experience in 1865 cases of cholesteatoma or fixed retraction pocket. The series shows a bias toward ciosed technique (59%). 396 of these cases were children in whom there was a higher, 72% use of closed technique. The rates of residual cholesteatoma and recurrent cholesteatoma are described with analysis of hearing gain after surgery.

This is a useful book, carefu y prepared and especially valuable as a view of the subject at a National level in a European country. English is now the main international scientific language. The rather mundane, worthy papers that most of us produce for much of the time do, in theory, reach a pretty wide au

0165~5876/88/.$03.50 6 1988 Elsevier Scierrce Publishers B.V. (Biomedical Division)

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Comparable papers, written in a language other than English, reach a much more limited audience. Translations are a useful way round this problem, however:

‘A man that looks on glass, On it may stay his eye;

Or if he pleaseth, through it pass, And then the heaven espy.

Just as an even moderately deaf hearing aid user will tend to be ignored socially, even by Otologists, so an even slightly imperfect translation may irritate us into losing the thread of an argument or even putting the book down altogether. Reading this book on cholesteatoma, you can tell the good days and bad days of the translator. There are some frank errors of syntax and punctuation and a few examples of ambiguity that were probably not in the original, otherwise a workman- like enough effort. I don’t kaow how many English language medical texts get translated into French. The index should certainly be fuller, in what ought to be considered a work of reference rather than simply a good read.

This book OS a valuable item in an Otologist’s library because it shows the state of the art for a representative group of surgeons in a European country; because it is a sensible attempt to pool the experienced viewpoints of different University Centres in that country; because it deals seriously with its subject with plenty of useful references, not all of them familiar to English and U.S. readers; because it reviews areas of controversy like pathogenesis and cholesteatoma surgery in a balanced way but never attempts to preach a point of view.

John Graham (London, U.K.)

The ABR Handbook Auditory Brainstem Response, 2nd edn. ME. Ghsscock, II C.G. Jackson and A. Forrest Josey

Georg Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart, 1987, 155 pp., 72 figs., II tables. ISBN no.:

313599502 x

In the preface to the 1987 second edition of their introductory text on the Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) (1st edn, published in 1981), authors Glass- cock, Jackson and Josey state the “book was undertaken to update and expand current applications of ABR. Some of the text simply needed addition of state-of- the-art techniques.. . “. This is a difficult but important task in such a rapidly changing field. Unfortunately, the authors have failed in their objectives.

Chapter One is a brief history cf Auditory Evoked Potentials (AEP) and an outline of their classification. Minor errors are present in this chapter: the authors’ statement that the fast and middle responses are “Vertex (V) potentials” (p. 3) is incorrect. Wave ‘V’ of the ABR is not the same as the ‘Vertex (V)’ potential, which is an older term for the ‘slow’ or ‘late’ cortical AEP. Although minor, this sort of