‘Colour atlas of pharmacology', by Heinz Lullman, Albrecht Ziegler, Klaus Mohr and Detlef Bieger. 2nd edition. Pp x+386. Price £17.70. Stuttgart: Georg Thieme Verlag, 1999. ISBN 2 13 781702 1.
There are so many pharmacology texts currently available, many with excellent diagrams, that my first thought on opening this book was, how could it be so different or contribute to the spectrum available? However, I was pleasantly surprised by the book's concise nature, the abundance of colour diagrams and its pocket size.
This is the second edition of the atlas and the format of the first has been retained with an expanded number of topics. Essentially, throughout, text is presented on the left hand pages with key issues and subheadings in bold type; relevant colour diagrams adorn the facing pages. The diagrams in particular have clearly been thought through carefully and there are many ingenious examples of how the authors have sought to present basic (eg, cardiac drugs) and more abstract (eg, psychotomimetic actions of LSD) pharmacological concepts. Most of the diagrams are worthy of study as they carry a considerable amount of information and detail.
Generally, topics are not restricted to just one page of text and, by using a small font size, the book covers more ground that one might have expected from its size. There are no chapters as such. The book is split into two major sections: general pharmacology and systems pharmacology. Within these sections material is seamlessly presented in the order traditionally observed with larger pharmacology texts: material starts with drug administration, distribution, pharmacokinetics and quantification before proceeding to the nervous, cardiovascular and other body systems, all from a pharmacological viewpoint.
Clearly, though, for a small, concise book, there must be omissions in detail, particularly in the breadth of drugs considered in each class, and, curiously, in some aspects of the history of pharmacology. The latter has a good introduction but really does not pay sufficient credit to Ehrlich, Gaddum and Schild, to name but a few, for the development of the subject area. However, as the authors readily declare, this book is not meant to be, nor could it be, a substitute for the more heavyweight tomes in this area.
Overall I congratulate the authors for their attention to detail and skilful figure representations. They have managed to find a niche in the pharmacological textbook market which is particularly suited to those in the health care professions studying pharmacology. For those reading for a BSc in pharmacology, this book alone will not suffice because they will need more detail, but it would be a useful revision and aide-mémoire. I would happily recommend it to our MPharm undergraduates for study and to my staff for the creative, educational use of the illustrations.
Reviewer - Trevor G. Smart
Trevor Smart is Wellcome professor of pharmacology at the School of Pharmacy, University of London