Larner AJ, Coles AJ, Scolding NJ, Barker RA, eds. A-Z of Neurological Practice: A Guide to Clinical Neurology, Second Edition. Springer 2011, 814 pages, $79.95.

In a recasting of their first edition (2005) of A-Z of Neurological Practice, the authors, Drs. Larner, Coles, Scolding, and Barker, have made their book more practical and useful, but less fun.  Gone are the disease names which I guess are now in the dustbin of neurological history, such as Jumping Frenchmen of Maine (a startle syndrome), Stargardt disease, and PORN Syndrome (yes, it is a real retinal infectious disease). The number of syndromes now described is probably 1/10 the number previously described, and therefore gone are obscure, rare, but interesting diseases and syndromes.

In its place is a more practical, textbook-like edition—such is, theoretically, the measure of progress.  One obviously can look up diseases and syndromes by the first letter of the disease and obtain good description of each.  In this respect the book is uneven, with extensive, informative discussions such as seen under Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (2 ½ pages with background, clinical features, investigation, , differential diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, references) and limited discussion under diseases such as Dandy-Walker Syndrome (8 lines), where incidentally the authors take a bit of a swipe at radiologists by saying that radiologists have a tendency “to overdiagnose a large cistern magna in adult patients as “Dandy Walker”).

There obviously was a decision by the authors to have some diseases with long description and some with very limited description. This was apparently necessary to keep the book size within reasonable limit.  There are no illustrations or images, which is fine given the intent of the book.  One advantage of the first edition is that it could neatly fit into your lab coat; not so with this larger and bulkier hardcover book.

This book is informative and can serve as a quick reference  for a large number of diseases, although one should expect to see reasonably in depth discussions in select diseases only (examples would be paraneoplastic syndromes or the hereditary motor and sensory neuropathies).  For those radiologists dealing with a large neurology practice, the book would be a valuable reference.