Standing tall among the classical textbooks of therapeutics, the seventh edition of Grollman maintains the tradition of excellence established by its predecessors. The style and format indicate the authors' concern with correlation between laboratory and clinical pharmacology; this is "pertinence" in its most meaningful sense.
The book is divided into six major sections on the basis of systems and three on specific classes of drugs. It is always interesting to see what importance various authors place on different systems. A random sampling reveals central nervous system drugs—194 pages; cardiac drugs—23, vitamins—30, antibiotics—39, hormones—93, anti-neoplastic agents—20, oral contraceptives—2, anti-hypertensives-14, gastrointestinal—6, etc. In large part this is a reflection of clinical frequency of disease and current progress in therapy. A quick roll call of a few current drugs discloses the presence of gentamicin, propranolol hydrochloride, L-DOPA (levodopa), pentazocine, mafenide, cytarabine, rifampin, and the "newest" oral contraceptive agents; not a bad muster for