Encyclopedia of Medical Syndromes

Abstract

Medical textbooks and reference books range in complexity from the brief sketch and short incomplete monograph to the encyclopedia. Off on the side there are medical dictionaries and textbooks on special subjects in various medical specialities. For those who have a hankering after the esoteric, the rare, the mysterious, or who simply find themselves puzzled from time to time in seeing a curious disease or strange patient or, in reading medical reports, encounter some obscure eponymic reference, or a comment about some little-known syndrome, this book by Robert Durham serves a very useful purpose. There are a great many ways by which a syndrome or symptom-complex gets a name. It may be named after the original describer. More often it is named after the popularizer who talks most convincingly about it. Sometimes it is simply descriptive as the phenobarbital sensitivity syndrome. Sometimes it deals with the structure of the body,