Media Review: Medically Important Fungi: A Guide To Identification - 5 Edition
Media Review: Medically Important Fungi: A Guide To Identification - 5 Edition
Media Review: Medically Important Fungi: A Guide To Identification - 5 Edition
DOI: 10.1309/LMW8AT6W4EUIXYBP
This book is like a fine edition. One may ask, “How did this text escape the
wine: it gets better with fate of so many others before it?” The answer is simple:
age, and fungi are the the content.
main reason. As the
master crafts(wo)man In this edition, Dr Larone has retained a partitioning of
critically reviews each the text into easily useable categories that afford the
year’s harvest and the laboratorian the opportunity to move quickly to the
wine produced, so portion of text wherein differential identification appears.
has Dr Larone critically I appreciate that the text begins with safety information.
reviewed each edition of This is followed by a section on the direct microscopic
Medically Important Fungi: examination of clinical specimens. This section contains
A Guide to Identification important information on terminology; the inflammatory
and produced a superior response to fungi; stains used for the detection and
product in the next vintage. identification of fungi; and finally, the classic drawings
that have made this text so popular. This section could
I remember the early editions of this text, with their soft be improved by the addition of photographs, as have
covers, and how beaten and worn they were by the time been added elsewhere in the text. The publishers should
the next edition had been published. The author of a consider embedding the color images throughout the text,
bench-top guide could not ask for a greater compliment. rather than sequestering them in the back as color plates.
I am always concerned when transitions are made from The subsequent section, “Detailed Descriptions,” consists
the softcover to the hardcover edition of a book. Too of a thorough grouping of mycoses that describes the
often, the formerly well-thumbed guide is transformed etiologic agent, the anatomic sites usually infected,
by this cover change into a textbook that finds its place the tissue reactions produced, and the morphology of
on a dusty shelf. This is not so with Larone’s Medically the infecting organism. As I mentioned earlier herein,
Important Fungi, which successfully survived this the drawings and images are of high quality; however,
transition, which occured with the publication of the 4th presenting them in color would be an improvement.
portion of the text, which for me has always been the Next, the “Laboratory Technique” section clearly
heart of the text. describes the media, stains, and methods used by
mycologists in the practice of their craft. The color plates
“Detailed Descriptions” includes the salient features of follow; as I mentioned earlier herein, these would be
the filamentous bacteria, yeast and yeast-like organisms, more effective if embedded throughout the text at the
thermally-dimorphic fungi, and the subcategories of the appropriate locations. A well-illustrated glossary and
thermally monomorphic molds. The descriptions are recommended reading list brings this excellent text to
succinct and to the point; they are perfect for use on the a natural conclusion. Dr Larone, this shiny, new hard-
bench. This section briefly denotes the pathogenicity covered edition of the text will soon be just as worn by
www.labmedicine.com Spring 2014 | Volume 45, Number 2 Lab Medicine e69