Book Review

A Colour Atlas of Arthropods in Clinical Medicine

N Engl J Med 1993; 329:1512-1513November 11, 1993

Article

A Colour Atlas of Arthropods in Clinical Medicine
By Wallace Peters. 304 pp., illustrated. London, Wolfe, 1992. $140. ISBN: 0-8151-6679-6 (Distributed in the U.S. by Mosby-Year Book, St. Louis).

Arthropods transmit devastating infections that affect millions of humans. There is hardly a person alive who has not suffered from arthropod bites, stings, or parasitism. Nevertheless, these organisms are not well known to most medical personnel. The purpose of this atlas is to provide an extensive look at the medically important arthropods and to supplement textbooks of parasitology and medical entomology that are “illuminating but dully illustrated.” The atlas succeeds admirably.

An initial chapter on the classification of extant arthropods is followed by three major sections dealing with arthropods as vectors, parasites, and agents of envenomation. These sections are subdivided into chapters chiefly focused on diseases or conditions involving arthropods. Although some groups such as ticks appear in all sections, needless duplication is avoided. Hundreds of arthropods are shown in full color, often with additional figures showing important anatomical structures, such as mouthparts, spiracles, and genitalia. The descriptions are followed by illustrations both of the environments and microhabitats where the arthropod is characteristically found and of its nonhuman hosts. Techniques of collecting and identifying specimens and methods of large-scale control and individual protection are illustrated. A number of photographs show clinical manifestations of arthropod-borne infections and parasitism. In addition to skillfully selected conventional photographs, paintings, and electron micrographs, less conventional techniques, such as interference microscopy, are occasionally used. The quality of the more than 900 photographs ranges from adequate to extremely good. A few are hard to interpret, a few others are not particularly helpful, but many are unique and dramatic.

The text is terse but clear and well written. It is supplemented by drawings depicting the life histories of parasites and the cycles of infection, by maps showing the geographic distribution of many of the diseases and organisms, and by 32 tables. There are even curiosities and trivia. The large venomous spider in Figure 818 was thrown by a thief at a policeman; the edible witchety grub, “not . . . to everybody's taste,” gets its name from the aboriginal name of its food plant; and male mosquitoes that do not mate in captivity copulate successfully if they are decapitated and their genitalia are brought in contact with those of a female. There is a bibliography for each chapter, but references are not keyed to the text.

This is a book that should be on the desks of all medical zoologists and physicians involved with clinical medicine and public health in the tropics. It is also recommended for clinical pathologists, physicians who advise travelers, physicians in the armed services, and physicians employed by companies with commercial interests in tropical or developing nations.

Sherman A. Minton, M.D.
Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202-5120