Child health care

Press, 31 May 1986, Page 20

Child health care

The Macmillan Guide to Child Health. Edited by Professor David Hull. McMillan, 1985. 352 pp, $39.95. (Reviewed by Margaret Burrell) The jacket blurb is very comforting: “Written by more than 40 paediatricians and specialists in clear, jargon-free language, the book gives parents direct access to all the latest information on child health from birth to adulthood.” Then follows a list of the contents, and the blurb concludes: “over 500 illustrations in two colours, photographs and charts show clearly the effects and development of health problems and the step-by-step procedures by parents and doctors to deal with them.”

Allowing for publishers’ hyperbole, this summary of contents and format is correct. The range of topics covered is very comprehensive, which also means that a basic, superficial level of

discussion is all that space allows. The coloured illustrations are helpful up to a point; yet, parents who have had the experience of taking to the doctor a small, miserable child covered from neck to knee with an angry rash which must surely be measles, scarlet fever or worse, only to have the doctor explain kindly that it is merely a random virus which will in time disappear, surely know the frustrations that the lack of clear photographs of various disorders can produce. It is a well-organised book, the text uses medical terminology which is understood by those with non-medical backgrounds, but the price is too high.

In paperback form this book might well sit next to Dr Spock and Hugh Jolly, but at nearly $4O it is cheaper to ring up your G.P.’s nurse when in doubt over child health.