Human Embryology, 2nd Edition, by William J.Larsen. 512 pp, New York: Churchill Livingstone,1997. Paperback, £30.

For many years the embryology textbook markethas been dominated by Sadler’s edition of Langman’sMedical Embryology, a classical text of descriptiveembryology. Then in the early 1990s several new textsemerged in response to the rapid expansion of researchfindings in developmental biology and the increasingappreciation of their clinical significance. One of thesewas the first edition of Larsen’s Human Embryology,written to accompany a series of embryology lecturesgiven to medical students as part of a gross anatomycourse.

The text is very well produced and the quality ofillustrations is superb; each chapter has a section onClinical Applications and on Experimental Principles.In his preface to the Second Edition, Larsen makesthe point that several discussions in the ExperimentalPrinciples section of the first edition are now moved toClinical Applications sections of the second, as thesignificance of new molecular findings to congenitaldisease and clinical practice has become apparent.Advances in techniques which can be applied toclinical screening and diagnoses have been updated(for example, see the beautiful spectral karyotyping inFigs. 1–16, Chapter 1) and new scanning electronmicrographs are included. I was pleased to see theinclusion of key references which were missing fromthe first edition; for example, Satoh’s work on humangonadal development. Unfortunately respiratory tractdevelopment remains only as an aside in Chapter 6 onEmbryonic Folding. A major change from the firstedition is the establishment of an accompanying WorldWide Web site (http://www.med.uc.edu/embryology)

which will increasingly display updates of material asnew information becomes available.

How does this text differ from its rivals? Thequality of printing and reproduction of illustrations iscertainly outstanding; this is important in a field wherevisualization is central to grasping concepts. Carlson’s‘Human Embryology and Developmental Biology’(1994, Mosby) is equally well-illustrated, thoughprinted on poorer quality paper; this has the advantageof lowering the cost (£19–95p) which is an importantconsideration for the student population. It too in-cludes classical descriptive embryology, the develop-mental basis for congenital abnormalities and informa-tion generated from new technology applied inexperimental studies. A further bonus for the studentis the inclusion of chapter summaries and reviewquestions with answers. The seventh edition of Lang-man’s also includes chapter summaries and reviewquestions but it still falls short of its competitors indealing with recent experimental embryology and themolecular basis of malformations. McLachlan’s excel-lent concise test ‘Medical Embryology’ (1994, Addison-Wesley) is the most user-friendly text for those whofind embryology difficult to grasp. However, the newedition of Larsen now has the edge on the latest re-search findings and so would be the textbook of choicefor graduate students. A further strength (for those withaccess) is the web site: there are animations, a self-test,and updates for each chapter, though at the time ofwriting only the update to Chapter 1 is available.

Sarah MackayLaboratory of Human Anatomy

University of GlasgowGlasgow G12 8QQ

Scotland

Book Reviews 217