Abstract
00093-2/unzip/10.1016_S1098-612X(04)00093-2_summary.png)
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this new edition of Feline Medicine and Therapeutics. As the editors state in their preface, the book is much larger than previous editions as the knowledge in feline medicine has grown substantially over the last decade. It is mainly a text book, with occasional (both colour and black/white) illustrations to clarify the text.
The book is subdivided into three sections. The first section covers general considerations when dealing with the feline species and discusses therapeutics, vaccination, chemotherapy, toxicology and behavioural problems. The second section deals with diseases of the different body systems and the third section is on infectious diseases. Any division is obviously arbitrary and often subjects could be comfortably placed in different chapters. Personally, I would have placed the vaccination discussion in the last section of the book on infectious diseases. The chemotherapy chapter gives a good overview of the different agents and chemotherapeutic treatment of lymphoma and leukaemia has been described in detail. Putting chemotherapy in a separate chapter results in occasional lack of chemotherapy mention in the chapters on the diseases of the different body systems. The toxic effects of the chemotherapeutic agents are discussed, which results in some overlap with the toxicology chapter.
Both national and international experts in their field have written the chapters. As a result, the more controversial cat questions such as ‘How do you treat a cat with idiopathic lower urinary tract disease?', ‘Are spiral organisms in the cat's stomach significant?' and ‘Should we use ACE-inhibitors in chronic renal disease?' are all discussed and backed up by up-to-date research.
No book can be fully comprehensive and occasionally information is not mentioned, but there are enough references and recommendations for further reading that the veterinarian should be able to find any answers to further questions quite easily.
Overall, I would thoroughly recommend this book for the veterinarian in practice with a high feline workload or with a special interest in cats, as a good reference book in practice and for students.