Customer Reviews

Histologic Diagnosis of Inflammatory Skin Diseases: An Algorithmic Method Based on Pattern Analysis

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This book is approximately half the length of the previous "silver" edition. Many of the more practical portions of the book (ie the actual descriptions of the inflammatory conditions!!) have been moved to a website to which you only receive 12 months of access upon purchasing this book. This in itself is unacceptable and seems to be a way to get customers to pay full price for half of a book.

The images on the website are of horrible quality in that the resolution is extremely low. This is unacceptable for a pathology book written in the last 5 years.

If you can find a copy of the old edition, buy that instead.

While Ackerman has arguably the best scheme for inflammatory skin diseases - his writing is so superfluous and filled with interupting phrases that one might wonder whether or not English is his first language. It is extremely conversational, and not in a good way. So if you have difficulty reading wordy books, or are easily distracted - you might think twice before forking over the cash on this book. Also, his first version is probably better without as much reliance on links to his website. However, you still probably cannot go wrong by studying even this version of the great Ackerman's approach to inflammatory skin disease.

After admiring previous editions of this book, I finally purchased it... the 3rd edition. I still have to use my colleagues earlier versions, as the current edition is unwieldy and poorly written.
My main beef is that it is simply unreadable. No effort has been made to be coherent or complete... images and descriptions of disease are simply refered to alphanumeric codes on the website. This is useless when I am trying to efficiently evaluate a glass slide. The DERM101 website is daunting and often unhelpful.
I wish I had purchased a different book.
Weedon remains my text of choice for skin, but I admire what Bernie did with inflammatory skin diseases. I wish I understood how to use his Algorithmic Method. He did a lousy job of giving me access to it in Edition 3.

There is no doubt Ackerman's pattern based approach to diagnosis of inflammatory diseases has been of huge value to many pathologists, and has influenced many others' approaches. If your interest is to follow the development of Ackerman's ideas from editions 1 and 2 your 180 odd dollars will be well spent, not least because the web-site allows you to view a series of lectures from beyond the grave and hear both the valuable thought provoking ideas and outrageous reality-defying pronouncements delivered in person. If, however, you are considering purchasing this book to learn inflammatory dermatopathology or as a reference for daily practice, my advice would be don't touch it with a barge pole.

Unfortunately, the approach which was so simply and successfully expounded in the first edition has been totally spoiled by the third edition. Not least among my criticisms is that the idea of simply providing links to a website for discussion of the specific disease entities is a complete shambles. Aside from the inconvenience, the pictures on the website are of poor quality, and enlarging every picture individually is painful. One is only granted access for one year (after which further fees are demanded). I believe Ackerman's original idea was to include the web-only content in a second volume. This would have been infinitely better.

As one expects, the writing style is idiosyncratic, though if one is accustomed to the "syntax peculiar and vocabulary arcane" it is not difficult to read. Most of the ideas in the early chapters will be familiar to readers with a dermatopathology background, and for those without such a background the ideas are probably more easily gleaned elsewhere. Chapter 7 (which is basically the old "clues" idea rebranded) is a nice little summation of ideas, but there is nothing new. Many of the "misconceptions" Ackerman rails against in chapter 9 are straw men and his vociferous objections have been aired many times before. The complete absence of any inclination to provide evidence or explanation for the pronouncements on others is familiar, but a little tedious . I personally have always found the algorithm charts (provided as a separate pamphlet)to be virtually useless.

If you want a dermatopathology textbook, buy Weedon. If you are interested in Ackerman's ideas read editions 1 and 2 of Histologic Diagnosis of Inflammatory Skin Diseases.

Even though part of this book is in hard copy, and part is on the Web, it the THE place to go for algorithms to direct a diagnosis in inflammatory skin disease. Furthermore, the diseases stated specifically are worth reading over and over again, especially when faced with real world cases. This is a must buy for anyone who practices dermatopathology.