Customer Reviews

Basic Histology: Text & Atlas, 10th Edition

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I bought this book because it was on the textbook list for my histology course in med school but was extremely disappointed with it's content. Having had histology as an undergrad in university, I really didn't feel this book makes it easy for the beginner to learn histology (especially since the photomicrographs are not in colour). Many of my classmates used Ross et al. "A Text and Atlas of Histology." Basic Histology may be good for a reference text, but not an intro Histo textbook. I could not in good conscience recommend this text for first year med students or for someone just taking histo for the first time.

This book was a prescribed text that I had to buy when I was doing elementary histology. It had far too little information for that yet alone anything of greater depth.

The book is superficially thick, with hardly any proper organization it just seems pedantic and thats what it is, without any substance however.

For instance when it speaks of the liver it doesnt go into any detail about the lobulation of the liver; it draws allusions as to how the liver can replace the spleen in erythrocyte filtration but doesnt go into further depth.

It doesnt tabulate (as most texts should and do) the comparative contractile mechanisms of the three muscle types.

Nor does it go into any proper depth on the ramifications of purkenje fibers to the contraction of cardiac muscle or how it differs from skeletal contraction.

It fails to recognize and mention characteristic landmarks on histological tissue i.e. Hassall's corpuscles in the thymus which is a dead give away to a failing histological text.

It wastes a lot of paper with chapter after chapter references, I mean you dont buy a textbook to just get more references to other texts, its not a directory that we are looking for now are we.

The chapter on the lymphatics and smooth muscle contraction are two things that I would accredit this book for having a done a good job on.

There are several other histology texts that you should consider prior to this, please do yourself a favour and DONT get this book.

This is a Histology Book with very low grade pictures compared to other nice shiny picture books that have their own problems. Book provides more information about the components but graphics are very weak. It could be used as a reference book but not as a sole source book. I found "Functional Histology" book better.
When certain structural components are explained book relies on some previous knowledge, so it is not a self sufficient book. So half quality information and half quality pictures, good for exam preparation to refresh your knowledge.

Basic Histology is definitely not the text of choice if you're new to the subject. The authors managed to introduce no less than 30 new terms in the first page of each chapter rendering the reader in complete confusion. They seemed not to have taken great care in explaining the various structures, which would be completely foreign to the beginning Histology student, and the figures included have much room for improvement as well. Further, there was no distinction of emphasis between the more important points in a chapter versus the less crucial details. I have read lots of intro texts to various subjects for academic purposes; and this is definitely the most lacking one I have encountered.

Although this book is very cheap and easy to use, the information in it is very poor. Once you read Ham's Histology by Cormack, you'll get what I mean.

One's opinion on this book depends your purpose. This is not a comprehensive histology text, nor is it an atlas of histology. Graduate students in anatomy or histology will be disappointed.

BUT, for a medical student this book used in conjunction with an atlas is pretty good. The book reads well, has "ok" pictures, and sufficient detail for medical school histology courses. I found this book used with the DiFore's histology atlas to be sufficient. I preferred this over Wheater's book, but others in my class did use the Wheater book.

Overall, I would recommend this book to be used along with a histology atlas such as DiFore, for medical school histology.

Histology is barely present on USMLE, so don't waste your time buying this book for board review unless you just can't remember anything from histology.

This book is one of the best books i've ever read in basic histology. it's really good for medical students, Simple and straight to the point.
Every histologic feature had it's clinical correlation which is so helpful for students throughout their Predoc studies.

I found this book to be a good introduction to histology. It is limited in two ways: The first is that it is truly 'Basic Histology'. This is a plus and a minus. On the plus side, the book resists the temptation to drown the student in a sea of detailed molecular and cellular biology. I think this was intentional, and they do a good job of cutting to the chase. On the minus side, too many of the images are of poor quality. As an instructor of this subject, I found it quite frustrating that some of the schematics (which are supposed to help me get my point across) were of such low resolution that they appeared out of focus on a powerpoint presentation. This is not acceptable in this era of digital imaging. I would use this book again, but only if the image problem is corrected.

This is one of the best books i've had(and read) so far, its gives you very concise and practical information(its a BASIC histology book,not a PRO) for a freshman getting into the Histology. it also has words in BOLD and in blue color to notice you about the most important terms and info to know.It even has small important phrases in big letters,just like Reader's digest!!

For sure this is the best BASIC Histology book ever...if you do want some deep treatment about the topic, go search another book...but for what it intends to discuss (the basic concepts of human body tissues science), the book is explendid. Please, DO NOT compare this book with a non basic book.