This book limps because of repetition, irrelevance, and poor organization. Its main theme— the importance of instant cardiac massage—has been presented often elsewhere in succinct but adequate form. Of these presentations, those of the author have been mitered loosely into the book.
The author has had an interest in keeping a registry of cardiac arrest cases. Communications from well known surgeons throughout the world and a record of seventeen hundred cases of arrest give the book an intimate personal flavor. Its style, however, is neither chatty enough to be comfortable nor scholarly enough to be authentic. A survival figure of thirty per cent under the most ideal circumstances does not give one confidence that the management of cardiac arrest is a solved problem.
Scholarly defects of a minor nature consist of misspelled names, unlisted references, a changing system of references, and a dosage of digitalis which is ten times too