Differential Diagnosis [antikvár]

PREFACE To secure maximal benefits from the vast treasury of therapeutic capital now available to the physician, early and accurate diagnosis is the first and most important step. In the préparation of my multivolume "Integrated Practice of Medicine" (1946) and the single-volume "Handbook of Differential Diagnosis" (1953 and 1957) I sought to emphasize the obvious fact that the key person in the accomplishment of early and accurate differential diagnosis is the man-on-the-spot. The present volume has evolved from its predecessors. It is a further extension of my efforts to provide the doctor-on-the-spot (whether under-graduate, interne, resident, family practitioner, internist, surgeon or specialist) with a convenient and concise guide to the intricacies and subtleties of the art and science of differential diagnosis. In particular, I direct attention to these special features, some unique in publications devoted to the subject at hand: • Interprétations of minimal subjective symptoms and seemingly trivial objective signs that often are the storm signais of gathering organic disease. • Reliance on progressive changes, such as rising blood pressure gradient, falling red count, minimal altérations in serial electrocardiograms or smal] characterologic changes, that act as straws in the wind for the keen observer. • Use of therapeutic tests as legitímate adjuvants to diagnostic investigation. • Récognition of the frequent intrusion of psychogenic overtones and of manifestations due to drug idiosyncrasies, hypersensitivities and poisonings as "herrings" drawn across diagnostic trails. • Addition of special sections, dealing with changes in body chemistry and metabolism, that often permit the récognition and treatment of func-tíonal disturbances before organic changes have occurred and that often respond to simple and safe therapeutic endeavors. • Overall concern with the living patient, afflicted with a frequently encountered, nonfatal and treatment-responsive condition rather than préoccupation with the victim of some terminal illness, a treatment-resistant entity or a bizarre clinical curiosity. • Liberal use of cross référencés, in parentheses, to integrate the text and