Nelson. Textbook of Pediatrics.

Nelson. Textbook of Pediatrics. 15th Ed. Edited by Waldo E Nelson (senior editor) and Richard E Behrman, Robert M Kliegman, and Ann M Marvin (editors). (Pp 2200; £70 hardback.) W B Saunders, 1996. ISBN 0-7216-5578-5 . Hardly anyone encounters a new edition of ‘Nelson’ with an innocent mind: it has simply been the standard paediatric text for the English speaking world for too long. True, ‘Forfar and Arneil’ is a UK production with many virtues, but it hasn’t been around for so long, it costs more—even in Britain—and it isn’t updated quite so frequently. In any case, as anyone who has spent much time in the witness box of an English court knows, it is Nelson that our own lawyers consider to be the ‘Bible’ on paediatric matters. To have reached a 15th edition is an achievement in itself, having taken 63 years in the process. As this writer knows too well, the passage of the years tends to bring obesity, and textbooks, …