Quite by coincidence, the same day this handsome book arrived, a somewhat distraught lady appeared in my office with a touch of acute bronchitis, and, in the process of examination, I discovered an "occupational contact dermatitis." She worked in one of our Maui pineapple canneries and dismissed her chronic fading macular rash with a casual, "Oh, those are pine burns; everyone who works with pineapple syrup gets this—to a greater or lesser extent!"
Thus I hastened to challenge the comprehensiveness of "Adams." Alas, I found only "Flattening of the ridges on the fingertips occurs among pineapple workers from proteases that erode and dissolve surface keratin." Tch, tch, Professor Adams, let us hope that future editions will not neglect this important endemic occupational affliction.
But facetiousness aside, this is a splendid monograph with encyclopedic range; it must be the classic of its field. Descriptions of mechanisms (genetic, enzymatic, metabolic, immunologic) set