A comprehensive text of intensive care would readily fill the equivalent of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. This is because the diseases treated are both numerous and varied; thus the patient can be medical, surgical, trauma or obstetric. It follows that the sum total of knowledge which needs to be available is truly encyclopaedic. This compact volume represents only a fragment of such information. The contributors were chosen because of their experience and because their methods were well-tried. The text therefore summarizes the best of current therapy and includes the controversial....