Health Beauty and Disease Information

Understand essential microbiology concepts with greater ease

The new edition of this popular text presents microbiology in a succinct, easy-to-use, and engaging manner. Clear discussions explain how microbes cause disease in humans, and review the updated vaccines and new antibiotics currently available to treat these diseases. Expert coverage of basic principles, the immune response, laboratory diagnosis, bacteriology, virology, mycology, and parasitology ensures that you’ll understand all the facts vital to the practice of medicine today. A revised artwork program illustrates the appearance of disease, simplifying complex information, while text boxes and additional summary tables emphasize essential concepts and learning issues for more efficient exam review. Online access to Student Consult-where you’ll find the complete contents of the book, fully searchable…Integration Links to bonus content in other Student Consult titles…updated features for both students and instructors…and much more-further enhances your study and exponentially boosts your reference power.

• Focuses on why the biologic properties of organisms are important to disease in humans, equipping you with a practical understanding of microbiology.
• Examines etiology, epidemiology, host defenses, identification, diagnosis, prevention, and control for each microbe in consistently organized chapters, enabling you to find the information you need fast.
• Features summary tables and text boxes that emphasize essential concepts and learning issues, enabling you to make your exam review more efficient.
• Correlates basic science with clinical practice through review questions at the end of each chapter to help you understand the clinical relevance of the organisms examined.
• Uses clinical cases from literature reports to illustrate the epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment of infectious diseases.

• Features revised artwork-more than 635 brilliant images, nearly all in full color-that offers a more consistent and modern approach to the study of medical microbiology.
• Provides more clinical photographs throughout that help you better understand the clinical applications of microbiology.
• Offers expanded use of summary boxes for bacteria throughout all organism chapters to further enhance your review and learning.
• Includes enhanced Student Consult features including self-assessment questions, clinical cases, animations showing the actions of various important toxins, and a PowerPoint presentation with supplemental images of organisms and stains.

The most important thing to know about the avian flu pandemic is that it probably ain’t coming, argues this brisk debunking of the latest medical scare story. Siegel, an associate professor at the NYU School of Medicine (False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear), cites evidence that the death rate from avian flu could be much lower than the reported estimate of 50% and it will probably not mutate to be readily transmissible between humans. And unlike the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, Siegel contends, a new bird flu pandemic would face effective public health measures and medical treatments. Revisiting the West Nile virus, anthrax, SARS and bioterrorism panics, Siegel sees bird flu as the latest “bug du jour” hyped by government and media alarmism. Meanwhile, he complains, attention is diverted from far more deadly diseases like AIDS, malaria and regular flu. In his own lapse into medical panic, he insists that stress induced by medical panics is itself a serious medical problem. Siegel accessibly presents the facts about avian flu, together with colorful anecdotes about his own panic-stricken patients whom he advises to simply eat right and exercise. Siegel’s exemplary bedside manner makes this dose of common sense go down easy. (Feb.) (Publishers Weekly, February 27, 2006) (more…)

Health conscious parents are wary of the side effects of vaccines, but they also fear the infectious diseases to which babies and young children can fall victim. This book equips parents with the knowledge they need to cope with both the tactics of the vaccine industry, and with the very real threat from infectious diseases.

Each infectious disease has different characteristics, and each needs to be approached in an individual way. Understanding the difference between the self-resolving childhood illnesses and the ones that need intervention is the first step to knowing how to deal with infectious diseases. This book advises parents on how to bring children safely through childhood illnesses like measles and whooping cough, and discusses medical and non-medical prevention and treatment of the non-childhood infectious diseases. (more…)