Recently, nephrology has emerged from a minor position to become a major medical discipline. Prod's book shows that the kidney is responsible for far more than elimination of waste products. It regulates the milieu intérieur in which tissue elements of the body live and it participates intimately in the dynamics of the circulation. Keeping abreast with the improved understanding can prolong patients' lives and relieve suffering; Brod's book will help do it.
As the work of one authority, it has the advantage of consistency and uniformity, avoiding verbosity, repetition, contradiction, and varying style virtually inevitable in multiauthored texts. Yet, it covers the subject virtually as comprehensively as another outstanding recent book on renal disease written by more than 40 contributors. Certainly minor criticisms can always be directed to personal bias and emphasis, but Brod's book escapes unfavorable criticism remarkably well. The book divides conveniently into three main parts: basic physiology,