When asked by students of medicine to name a reliable, readable and adequately comprehensive text book of clinical paediatrics we have, in the past, been forced to recommend the least unsatisfactory among the large number of not quite good enough books on the market. Those available always seemed to be too long or too brief, too dogmatic or too discursive, too practical or not practical enough, too selective or too all-embracing. Despairing of this, many of us have attempted writing books of our own only to discover how difficult it is to find the right formula for the general reader seeking...

When asked by students of medicine to name a reliable, readable and adequately comprehensive text book of clinical paediatrics we have, in the past, been forced to recommend the least unsatisfactory among the large number of not quite good enough books on the market. Those available always seemed to be too long or too brief, too dogmatic or too discursive, too practical or not practical enough, too selective or too all-embracing. Despairing of this, many of us have attempted writing books of our own only to discover how difficult it is to find the right formula for the general reader seeking...