Dobbs MR, ed. Clinical Neurotoxicology: Syndromes, Substances, Environments. SAUNDERS Elsevier 2010, 720 pages, $186.00.
In a very topical and important new 720-page text Clinical Neurotoxicology: Syndromes, Substances, Environments Michael R. Dobbs, the editor, and 65 contributors have catalogued, described, illustrated, and discussed a wide variety of substances which are toxic to the nervous system. In addition the authors devote the first 248 pages to an overview of neurotoxins, syndromes associated with neurotoxins, and the testing for neurotoxins.
The first thing one sees when opening the text are 15 pages of color plates with 2 to 4 color photographs on each page. These are referenced in the individual chapters, and they run the gamut from pertinent pictures of flowers, snakes, inhabitants of the sea, histopathology, and MR images among others.
There are 6 sections of the book: (1) Neurotoxic Overview, (2) Neurotoxic Syndromes — Symptomatic, Systems-Oriented approach in Clinical Neurotoxicology, (3) Neurotoxic Testing, (4) Neurotoxic substances (metals, drugs, organic, bacterial, animal, pesticides, plants, radiation cyanide, (5) Neurotoxic Environments and Conditions, (6) Neurological Weapons and Warfare (scary stuff in this section). Conceptualizing this book, gathering all the material, getting contributions from experts in each area, and synthesizing this into one complete and eminently readable book was brilliant.
One might ask-what could be the value of this book to a neuroradiologist? From a purely imaging standpoint — a reasonable amount. For example, in the chapters on toxic encephalopathies one is on cortical and mixed encephalopathies (no MR), the other on leukoencephalopathies, with some correlative MR images. The chapter on neuroimaging in neurotoxicology is short (10 pages) but does discuses and demonstrate major imaging findings. Imaging is not however the reason to consider the purchase of this book; rather it is the wealth of associated information on these diseases. This information would be difficult to obtain easily from other sources; it simply is an important and well conceived book. The chapters are punctuated by boxes containing vignettes of interest, excellent tabular information, case studies figures showing the mechanisms of neural injury, patient photographs, pictures of insects and more. There are so many sections of interest that the material can not be easily or simply summarized. I cannot imagine an entity not covered in this text.
In summary, this is an outstanding book; a masterful job. It is one of those books which by its title alone one would think it would have limited appeal, but actually the converse is true. It cuts across subspecialty areas and should be a book available (preferably purchased for one’s own library) to all neurologists, internists, ER physicians, epidemiologists, and even neuroradiologists.
