Customer Reviews

Sherris Medical Microbiology, Fifth Edition

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Don't throw away your Fourth Edition! The Fifth Edition has a lot to recommend it: much better artwork, more sensible organization of basic theory and microbe-specific detail, up-to-date pathophysiology and therapies, etc. In the Preface the editors state that much material has been "trimmed" to keep this edition the same size as the previous one. "Trimmed" is a euphemism for "dummied-down". They should have opted for a bigger book. First, they left out all the references; not a single one is to be found. This was a valuable feature of the Fourth Edition, and pointed to much relevant material for further study. A cryptic excuse for this is that the emphasis is on the "text narrative", not reference material. That's nonsense; all good medical textbooks have references.

There has been a turnaround of authors in this multi-authored book. The new guys seem to have ignored several changes in the taxonomy of bacteria and viruses, such as the designation of Flavivirus as a Family and the split of Papovavirus into Papillomavirus and Polyomavirus. The new tables still contain the old errors, such as asserting that Hepatitis B is a Family when in fact it belongs to the Hepadnaviridae Family. There are numerous little errors like this that have been carried over from the Fourth Edition; apparently, the new authors cut-and-pasted what looked good without examining it for accuracy.

The stuff that was "trimmed" was not "older and less important information", as stated in the Preface. The editors apparently have figured out that USMLE-obsessed students are more interested in answering test questions than understanding anything, so a lot of viral and bacterial anatomy has been cut. We can now view these entities as more of a black box than something with important innards.

Some of the ambiguous or unclear explanations of the Fourth Edition have been carried over to the Fifth, such as the description of the One Step Growth Experiment, which would be unintelligible were it not for Wikipedia.

I cannot find an errata page for any Lange textbook. This is a Good Thing, since we can now rest assured that there are never any errors in their books. Too bad there isn't a contact form for sending suggestions for improvement for the next edition; this is a really good book, but apparently they don't need the likes of you and me to make it even better. Don't bother sending suggestions to Customer Service; it will be filed away by someone unfamiliar with the word "enzyme".

The Preface references a web site which purportedly contains an "online learning center" with lots of extra stuff, like "additional cases, questions, and study aids". As of this writing, it is vaporware, and I've complained to the publisher. In fact, Lange doesn't even have a reference to this (Fifth) edition up yet. Maybe all this will be in place by the time you read this.

If you don't have the Fourth Edition, you can probably get it very cheap, and I suggest you do so (in addition to buying the Fifth Edition) for the references and the enhanced technical detail.

As a first year medical student I've really enjoyed this book. I think it's tough to make an all inclusive book on microbiology but Sherris does a pretty good job. I think it's got the right balance of clinical and micro information for a med student. I love the little summary lines they put in the margins- it helps you pick out the most important stuff and skim through stuff you already know or don't need to know. Very readable- not too dense, not to superficial. I was a microbiology major in college and had a lot of books that went into much more depth on stuff like molecular biology and had very little clinical information and so, again, for medical students and board prep, I think this has the right combination of material.

If you're buying this book, you're probably doing so for a class. I prefer "Bacterial Pathogenesis: A molecular approach" but it is missing much of the viral and fungal pathogens.