This is an attractively produced book, which I will be glad to have on my shelves for reference, largely for diseases that I know little about or am unlikely to see in practice, e.g. the stiff person (man!) syndrome, myoclonus or the painful legs and moving toes syndrome. However, although psychopharmacology was included in the first edition in 1981 (and indeed the first chapter of the first volume of Clinical Neuropharmacology edited by H. L. Klawans in 1976 was on the pharmacology of schizophrenia), it has been excluded from this edition, apparently reflecting the clinical practice of North American neurologists for whom the book is principally intended.
Accordingly it has little to offer psychiatrists or psychopharmacologists, although the former will find the chapters on epilepsy, tardive dyskinesia, akathisia, Huntington's chorea, Gilles de la Tourette syndrome, dementia, migraine and sleep disorders useful and informative.
There are 48 chapters (four on convulsive disorders) in 635 pages of text, from 53 contributors-51 from the United States and two from England (P. Brown and C. D. Marsden from Queen's Square wrote the chapter on myoclonus). The first two chapters on the principles of pharmacokinetics and synaptic transmission are both excellent, clear and succinct, containing just the right amount of information for clinicians. In spite of the numerous authors involved the length and style remain remarkably consistent throughout.
Many psychiatrists will want to know what is the latest theory for tardive dyskinesia and since, I confess, I did not fully understand the explanation provided by Caroline Tanner from the same department as Harold Klawans, I here reproduce it in full:
'Basal ganglia function is mediated in part by cortical glutamatergic afferents, which somatotopically innervate two putaminal GABAergic neuronal populations. Anatomic, physiologic, and pharmacologic studies suggest that these neuronal popula-