Cecil Textbook of Medicine

It took eight years, but the new edition of the granddaddy of general internal medicine texts has finally been published. At a time when many authoritative reference texts are updated and published every three years, it is surprising that it took this long to get the newCecil. I suspect that the many physicians who usedCecilas their guide to internal medicine will be quite pleased that the wait is over. On the surface, the novice might wonder if there is a difference among the major internal medicine textbooks. All of them are thick, heavy books with prestigious editors (interestingly, among the editors ofCecil, Harrison, Stein's, and Kelley's texts, none are women). The difference is in their organization, which in some cases is substantial. According to the preface to the previous edition ofCecil, the concept was not to fragment discussions of disease processes but, rather, to combine