This handsome two-volume atlas covering pelvic anatomy and vaginal gynecologic surgical procedures, by Dr Platzer, professor of anatomy at Innsbruck, Austria, and Dr Reiffenstuhl, professor of gynecology at Salzburg, Austria, is strangely reminiscent of its 40-year-old predecessor by Peham and Amreich. It is a translation of the German language edition, edited by Emanuel Friedman, and covers principally the techniques developed in the I. Frauenklinik in Vienna and in German clinics during the end of the 19th and early part of this century. Every other page is a beautiful, bloodfree anatomical illustration by Franz Batke.
The authors make no pretense of covering much beyond historic vaginal techniques that are still extensively used in Austrian and central European clinics. Many of these are standard procedures and are carried out with minor local modifications through the world. Others, such as the Schauta-Amreich radical vaginal hysterectomy, which occupies some 130 pages of the text,