Physical Signs in Medicine and Surgery: An Atlas of Rare, Lost and Forgotten Physical Signs [Paperback]

FRED ASHLEY WHITE (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2009

Physical Signs in Medicine and Surgery - An Atlas of Rare, Lost and Forgotten Physical Signs: The work for this text began over two decades ago as Dr. Ashley White was researching ancient diseases and their initial presentations for prevention of future pandemic plagues. This evidence based paleopathology research has granted Dr. White access to some of the world's most sensitive archaeological sites. These locations have been in England, Scotland, North and Central America, Nine additional countries in Europe, Asia - including Russia and China, the Middle East, North and Sub-Sahara Africa, and South America including the Amazon Basin. This comprehensive Atlas was originally conceived for doctors providing needed care in dangerous, rugged and remote situations often created by catastrophe, disasters, epidemics, and military conflicts. It is within these serious environments that this Atlas can assist practitioners find the most obscure and difficult diagnosis where access to x-rays and modern laboratory equipment are often impossible. Designed with a unique reference style of key words tagged to known medical systems the Atlas functions as an easy to use clinical field manual whether in use in an advanced medical care unit or in the harsh realm of the jungle. This extensive compendium of rare medical findings, together with an incredible group of landmark essays make this the most complete Atlas of physical signs ever published.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dr. Ashley White is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he earned his surgical degree. He also completed forensic anthropology training and has held membership in a top national pathology academy, as well as, Fellowship status in a surgery association. Dr. White also earned a Baccalaureate of Science Degree in Biochemistry from East Carolina University and was a research associate at the East Carolina University School of Medicine and at Duke University. Dr. White has been a medical staff physician with surgical privileges at three regional medical centers. His practice focus has been oral medicine and surgical pathology. Dr. White is a professional member of the Archaeological Institute of America, founded in 1879 and chartered by the United States Congress. Dr. White lives with his wife and son on their ranch located in North Central Florida and their home in the Georgia Blue Ridge Mountains. For more information visit TheWhiteRanch.org

Product Details

• Paperback: 816 pages
• Publisher: Xlibris, Corp. (April 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1441508287
• ISBN-13: 978-1441508287
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,690,891 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Clinical Reference, September 23, 2009

By 

KSR Medical Arts Editor (New York, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Physical Signs in Medicine and Surgery: An Atlas of Rare, Lost and Forgotten Physical Signs (Paperback)

This extremely important clinical reference atlas: Physical Signs in Medicine and Surgery, by Dr. F. A. White is contains the most extensive scholarship on the subject. With some 250 pages of physical signs it covers thousands of differential descriptions, some that have been truly lost to the discipline for a centuries. It covers essentially every rare expression of physical signs known, including the most misunderstood zoonosis vectors. It does follow the dry format of a reference dictionary and is written as such for professionals and research scholars. However the colorful descriptions of some of the more bizarre cases, like the ones that involved poisons were extremely interesting, and thus made it a fun read. The second part of the text is a valuable Thaumatgraphia Medica. It contains a chronological arrangement of some of the most overlooked, yet important cases found in medical literature. These phenomenal selections span some five hundred years of history and establish the ultimate collection of extraordinary papers in medicine, surgery and the scientific method. You can feel just by reading some of these landmark works that the authors faced some intense criticism from their rivals. But without their determination these important discoveries would have never come to light. One of the best aspects of this enjoyable book, was the conversations that it inspired among colleagues. Books that get you excited to talk about science should get some type of award. Bravo!

Found the Kindle edition more user friendly with a fantastic searchable index: Physical Signs in Medicine and Surgery: An Atlas of Rare, Lost and Forgotten Physical Signs

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Interesting, September 3, 2009

By 

Lisa Walsh "Foxline Media Group" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Physical Signs in Medicine and Surgery: An Atlas of Rare, Lost and Forgotten Physical Signs (Paperback)

This is an excellent read and we recommend it as it is the most comprehensive resource available for practitioners and students in the clinical fields. Whether you are studying medicine, dentistry, nursing, or veterinary science the answers to even the most difficult diagnosis are in this Atlas. After you begin to use it, it can replace a half dozen books that cover physical signs. This awesome clinical text and a scut monkey house manual are all you will need for even the toughest residency and you will continue to reference it for years into the future. It is the - Must Have Book - for learning differential diagnosis. This book can diagnose the strange and bizarre like HOUSE.

Check out the Kindle version for a great searchable findings and their organ systems:
Physical Signs in Medicine and Surgery: An Atlas of Rare, Lost and Forgotten Physical Signs

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but Alphabetical List of Signs (followed by old paper reprints) from 1990, July 17, 2010

By 

Book Fan (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Physical Signs in Medicine and Surgery: An Atlas of Rare, Lost and Forgotten Physical Signs (Kindle Edition)

I spent some time carefully examining this text on another book site. Since this Amazon listing (at the moment of this writing) does not include any preview or detailed contents information, I hope these details are helpful to the hopeful reader:

The book appears to have been compiled in 1990: the preface has two dates, 1990 and then 2009 for the (minimally) "revised" version. Also in the text itself, there are no citations after 1990 (except for four dictionary/encyclopedia citations from 2008, and a number of self-citations from 2009). (String search is useful for figuring out things like this.)

The preface itself (pages 13-19) is an interesting essay about the development and use of medical signs over the centuries.

The main part of the book (pages 21-250) is nothing more than an alphabetically organized text list of medical signs, with brief description, and abbreviated citations, about 10 per page. I could not find any illustrations, but I did not have the time to examine all 229 pages of this section. I am not sure why the term "Atlas" figures so prominently in the title, because that term implies some sort of spatial organization (rather than alphabetical), and also implies that the book contains some sort of graphical content or diagrams, etc. Instead this book is more like reading a very interesting dictionary.

It looks like it took a lifetime of dedication to compile this list, and there are probably numerous and interesting but obscure gems in here. But this compilation could be so much more useful if it were organized by body system or part, rather than alphabetically, and certainly some illustrations could help. Also sometimes the language sounds like it was just cut and pasted from some very old out-of-copyright sources from times when people spoke and wrote differently than they do now [2/15/2011 ETA: a quick excursion to google books shows that there are instances of this, with sources properly cited]. There are many excellent medical examination books out there that do have better writing, organization, and illustrations/diagrams, such as DeGowin, Mosby, Schwartz, etc.

The rest of the book is a bunch of historic old paper reprints, a "thaumatographica medica" described as "an arrangement of the most important cases in medical literature". You can see the list of papers in the Table of Contents. There is a bibliography after page 797, but no preview was available.