The rapidly expanding knowledge relating to the broad fields of clinical immunology and allergy has made any attempt by a single author to cover these fields in depth, indeed, a herculean task. This textbook exemplifies this problem as the wide range of topics are reviewed with varying degrees of quality and thoroughness. Included are discussions of fundamentals of immunology, atopic diseases, reactions associated with cellular immunity, autoimmune diseases, and connective-tissue diseases.
A major weakness of the book lies in the sections dealing with fundamentals of immunology. The classification of hypersensitivity is not as illuminating as the now widely used simple Class I-IV suggested by Gell and Coombs. Inaccuracies and occasional contradictory statements confuse the presentation of certain sections. For example, reaginic antibodies are called both IgE and IgA, human anaphylactic antibodies are described in terms of a system now generally discarded, and the classical serological precipitation test is defined in