Seymour Diamond

Recent Advances on Pain: Pathophysiology and Clinical Aspects

This monograph includes 13 excellent papers presented at an international symposium in Florence, Italy, in 1972. The first six chapters concern physiology, pharmacology, and the measurement of pain. They adequately review already established concepts of the mechanisms of pain and bring the reader up to date on recent progress. Sicuteris discussion of vasoneuractive substances and their relationship to both cardiac and head pain makes a complicated subject readily understandable for both the clinician and researcher. His successful treatment of migraine with serotonin precursors may constitute a significant breakthrough in migraine therapy. In the clinical portion of the book, Dr. Houdes discussion of average and optimal doses as well as placebo therapy will give the clinician new understanding and insight in treating the pain of cancer. The discussion of the proper application of analgesic block for intractable pain should reawaken interest in this important subject. However, I question the authors use

Pharmacology of the Cerebral Circulation

This multiauthored book, extremely broad in scope, is divided into 12 informative chapters, useful to both the clinician and the researcher. It is unusual for a text concerned with pharmacology to be largely directed to the physiological, physiopathological, and clinical therapeutic aspects of brain circulation. These discussions emphasize the void still existing in the pharmacology of brain circulation. The editor points out that central nervous system stimulants or depressants are known to cause obvious changes in cerebral blood flow; however, the mechanisms involved in these effects are not always clearly defined. Nonetheless, the discussions of the pharmacology involved in brain circulation is extensive, detailed, complete, and accompanied by more than adequate bibliographies. Of particular interest to the neurologist, neurosurgeon, and pharmacologist, the book has value for other medical specialists. The chapter on central nervous system depressants with its excellent discussions of the cerebrovascular effects of anesthetics should appeal to the