Christmas stocking

de®ciency are handled well and there are useful chapters on immune manipulation, pregnancy and laboratory techniques. The remainder of the book is subdivided on the basis of organ and tissue systems, which works well as there is extensive cross-referencing. There are comprehensive treatments of lymphoproliferative disorders and transplantation and then a series of chapters dealing with autoimmune and infectious aspects of the kidney, joints and muscles, skin, eye, chest, central nervous system, gastrointestinal tract and liver. The ®nal chapter includes a brief introductory section on mucosal immunity that is very useful. Lastly, autoimmune, endocrine and haematological diseases are covered. The only important omission is an extensive coverage of immunotherapeutic strategies for treating solid tumours, which is a rapidly expanding area. The main strength of the book lies in the intimate integration of the excellent clinical cases into the body of the text. These cases seem to re ̄ect the spectrum of patients likely to be encountered by clinicians and include both clear-cut and more dif®cult, inconclusive examples. All chapters are very well referenced and the web site provides useful supplementary information, although there is scope for the use of coloured illustrations with more of the cases and one or two of the links were apparently incorrect. For readers interested in following up any of the references there is the facility of linking into the MEDLINE citation directly from the web site. There is also a link to Roitt's `Essential Immunology', the more basic scienti®c content of which admirably complements this book. A particularly useful feature of the web site, providing it is regularly maintained, is the section on updates. At the time of writing, there was only a single item included there but hopefully this will be added to at regular intervals. The book is speci®cally designed for medical students, doctors in training and to update experienced physicians, which is vitally important in such a fast moving ®eld. The design of the book lends itself particularly to modern styles of medical teaching and many of the cases themselves could be used as a basis for self-directed learning. The selfassessment questions accompanying each chapter are particularly useful in this regard. It is quite good value for money and would be a useful addition to the bookshelves of ®nal year medical students and more experienced clinicians alike.