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Although this book provides the reader with helpful hints about practice routines such as scheduling, charges, consultations, and the use of the telephone, it is rather a statement of the conventional wisdom which is supposed to transpire between the well patient-family complex and the pediatrician. Dr. Oberst and his colleagues have sharpened the blade of anticipatory guidance to a razor's edge and their methods should be known to all practicing child health specialists. Their system includes a mountain of literature, evening lectures, periodic questionnaires, frequent visits, and community involvement.

When this column presented the paper by Dr. Lowe on "Observations on the Care of Children in Afghanistan," there was considerable interest in the rather unusual conditions presented. The way children live and are cared for in other countries of the world interests pediatricians, both because of their catholic interest in child health and the possible lessons to be learned from such a study which can be applied in one's own situation. Dr. Robinson has been serving as Consultant in Maternal and Child Health in the Regional Office for South East Asia of the World Health Organization, one of the most populous regions in the world. India itself, as Dr. Robinson indicates in the cold figures of his opening paragraph, has a population larger than that of the 21 American republics, that is of North and South America combined. It is clear that variations within the region must be great and that generalizations must be made with great care.

Although this volume, which is the report of a recent symposium held in London under the auspices of the CIBA Foundation, would be of greatest interest to laboratory workers in virology, it should also be available for reference reading to anyone concerned with problems of infectious disease. The participants at this symposium were principally from England but there were also a scattering of others from the United States, Germany, Russia, France, and Czechoslovakia. The book contains thirteen individual chapters which are actually the formal papers read by the authors, and following each manuscript is added the recorded discussion of fellow participants.