Comprehensive Dermatology and Sexually Transmitted Diseases- Ramji Gupta

Bhushan Kumar

 Former Professor & Head, Department of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology, PGIMER, Chandigarh, India

Correspondence Address:
Bhushan Kumar
Former Professor & Head, Department of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology, PGIMER, Chandigarh
India

Publisher: Anne Books Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi, 1 ^st edition, 2010

Pages: 202, Price: INR 495

This small book, which claims to include dermatology and sexually transmitted diseases and leprosy (not included in the title), can be called concise but certainly not comprehensive. With little information on each subject (limitation due to size of the book), I am not sure what is the targeted readership. The author has many books on the same subject to his credit -why another one? I fail to understand. The book certainly cannot serve the needs of medical undergraduates because it not only gives incomplete information but also incorrect information at certain places, and includes some personal observations made by the author. A book of this size should only have very definite and non controversial information. The weakest part is the section on sexually transmitted diseases and leprosy - where the treatment schedules do not conform to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) or World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, which leave the reader confused. Some of the photographs are not clear or do not depict the classical lesions at the appropriate sites. Language is not perfect. I will leave it to the reader to decide what to expect from a book which has space occupied by many illustrations and claims to cover all the three subspecialties in less than 200 pages.