Multiple Organ Failure: Patient Care and Prevention

In his multifaceted career, Arthur Baue has maintained an abiding fascination with the observation that when a person begins to die, every organ seems to fall apart almost simultaneously. One failing organ seems to doom the next in a domino effect that is difficult to reverse. Baue likens this to Oliver Wendell Holmes' "One 'hoss Shay."

In this monograph, Baue explores every aspect of the unanswered problem of multiple organ failure. The result is a scholarly text that is challenging yet refreshing on an important and timely subject of interest to clinicians of many specialty interests and to basic scientists.

A single-authored monograph inevitably reflects the personality of the author. Chapter 1 begins with a description of how the disparate failure of single organs was finally recognized as a single clinical entity. Baue manages to cite all the important references and physiologic and clinical concepts concerning a complex subject. The