Barbara J. Bain , Blackwell Publishing , 2004 . ISBN 1405121750 . 136 pp . £16·95. The first edition of this book proved very popular with trainee haematologists and biomedical scientists. It was successful because it was well laid out, nicely illustrated and had ample blood films reinforcing the clearly written text. This new edition retains all of the features of the earlier edition. The size is identical and the content looks fairly similar, although I have not carried out a side-by-side comparison. The structure of the book is logical, starting with the basics of the blood film and the types of cell seen on the normal peripheral blood smear, in addition to a useful discussion of the blood count parameters themselves. After this, separate chapters deal with red cells, white cells and common findings in health and disease. The self-assessment section at the end is useful for gauging knowledge although this could probably be slightly more extensive. I am not sure many people will feel compelled to undertake Exercise 1–3 because this involves covering the legends in the book and working out what the slide shows, or selecting some real blood films, assessing these and getting an experienced laboratory worker to check the answers, but as a natural cynic I may be misjudging the readers. The more useful questions are probably the MCQs (of which there are only 12) and clinical cases (of which there are, for some odd reason, only nine). Both these sections could be beefed up and I think this would add value, making them appear less of an afterthought. However, despite minor quibbles I would definitely recommend this small book as an excellent primer for morphology, and I am sure the second edition will prove as popular as the first.
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Drew Provan (2004) studied this question.