Essentials of Respiratory Disease

An attempt to bring together the techniques of bedside diagnosis, the essential concepts of pulmonary physiology and the clinical characteristics of the commoner respiratory diseases. Topics covered include disorders of the thoracic cage and drug induced lung disease.

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Many of the commonest problems in clinical medicine are due to respiratory illnesses and the authors have always felt that a thorough understanding of the manifestations of pulmonary disease is an invaluable asset to the general physician, particularly in a field of medicine in which a knowledge of physiology principles plays so large a part in the logic and management. In this book the authors have tried to bring together the techniques of bedside diagnosis, the essential concepts of pulmonary physiology and the clinical characteristics of the commoner respiratory diseases, in the hope of providing a practical guide to clinical problems that may be useful to senior medical students and to doctors in their early postgraduate years. Since the last edition of this book was published in 1975 there have been many advances in the understanding and treatment of respiratory disease although the basic facts of clinical examination and pulmonary physiology remained relatively unchanged.
In contrast, the investigation of pulmonary disease has been considerably augumented by the widespread application of fibreoptic bronchoscopy within the associated procedures, and the ready availability of new imaging techniques and interventional radiology. These new developments have been given appropriate recognition in this revision. The authors have looked closely at the major part of the book which described the clinical manifestations, investigation and management of those common respiratory disorders which make up the greater part of the practice of respiratory medicine, and have rewritten many sections which have become outdated. For example, the management of pulmonary tuberculosis has changed radically in the last 15 years, HIV infection has begun to present respiratory physicians with unprecedent problems in the management of respiratory infections, and the approach to chronic diseases like asthma and cystic fibrosis has matured as doctors have recognized the value of shared responsibility between doctors and their patients in coping with illness.