Abstract
The first edition of Small Animal Radiology and Ultrasonography (authors Ronald Burk and Norman Ackerman) appeared in 1986. The book was described then (as now) as a pictorial atlas, a collection of radiographs illustrating most of the common conditions affecting dogs and cats. It was noteworthy because the quality of reproduction of radiographs was a cut above the other books available at that time. The accompanying text was relatively concise but useful and reflected clearly the authors' extensive experience. I was a first year resident then and remember using the book to review the radiographic signs of common conditions as well as some of the sexier conditions that I was naively expecting to encounter, such as rheumatoid arthritis. This was particularly pertinent because our teaching file in those days contained only equine radiographs.
The second edition was considerably enlarged by the addition of ultrasound images and more text. Like the radiographs, the ultrasound images were mainly good quality and many were presented in groups of four, which was useful because it helped the reader to identify their common features. An index of figures was provided to aid browsing. It is my impression that the second edition was very popular and established the book as a standard text.
For the third edition, the stated aims of the book remain largely the same, and the majority of radiographs are those used in the first edition, but another 200 figures (mostly ultrasound images) have been added and the text has again been expanded. For me, this is where the book runs into difficulties because the expansion of the text goes well beyond that necessary ‘to supplement the pictorial information’. Despite the aim of covering ‘most of the common conditions’, a wide range of conditions is now included and there are a few rare examples, such as a spinal arteriovenous fistula and ultrasound images of a brain abscess. In the third edition a staggering 2710 references are cited, which is presumably in an attempt to make the book comprehensive and up to date, but the information provided by these references is not always weighed—it is simply presented with no indication of its value. Much of the text reads like a long list. There are examples of figures separated from the relevant text by 15 pages or more. There are many instances of protracted descriptions where a simple diagram would have got the point across more efficiently.
It would be harsh to criticise a new medical book purely because it is large when medical knowledge is growing at such a rate but, on the other hand, do we really need increasingly large compilations? Don't we have a greater need for a guide to what matters most? In the case of this new edition, large equals unwieldy. The duplication of several references suggests that the authors found it unwieldy too. The book would benefit from editing to restore its emphasis and it would be enlivened by the authors expressing more opinion. As it is, the only noticeable individuality comes in their choice of terms: radiographic density, anterior, forelimb, cardiac waist and ‘lay-down heart’ all make appearances here, although they are usually edited out of journal articles. Surprisingly, a few errors have persisted from the first edition, such as the statement that fat and cartilage have the same opacity. (For the record, the Hounsfield number of fat is in the range −50 to −120 whereas that of cartilage is usually in the range 100 to 150, hence cartilage is more opaque than fat in conventional radiographs.)
This book has grown beyond its original aims into a much more comprehensive treatment of this subject, but it still contains good material and is an attractive purchaseif you are looking for a compilation of radiographs and ultrasound images and reasonably current supporting information in one volume. Just be prepared for it to be a big one.