Most American surgeons are both curious and relatively uninformed about the practice of surgery in England. The best insight over the years has been the giant series (it now runs to 19 volumes) previously edited by Charles Rob and Rodney Smith. The editorial baton has now been passed to Hugh Dudley and Charles Rob's colleague in North Carolina, Walter Pories. This new, fourth edition of General Principles of Surgery carries on the tradition.
The current volume serves two functions. First, it provides a token glimpse at such surgical principles as preoperative and postoperative care (12 topics in 77 pages), operating room environment, wound management, and sepsis (35 pages). Due to space constraints, this portion of the book is superficial.
But the second half of the book gets down to the business of "how to take it out," which is the theme of any surgical atlas. Subjects covered (skin lesions, breast,