William Holmes: Fourth year medical student: University of Glasgow. Scotland. UK

Neurology is a horrible subject to the medical student. A plethora of nerve pathways and a multitude of pathologies mean that students, when confronted with a neurological patient in the clinical setting, quickly reverse and run back up to the relative safety of cafeteria.

What this books attempts successfully to do, is to remove the teaching barriers of neurology, making neurology not a matter of guess work but reasoning from a solid background of neurological principles. This book achieves this by removing itself from complex diagrams and ancient terms, instead adopting an approach that at first glance seems rather basic. Its layout involves a multitude of illustrations ranging from the simple to the more complex that are not used to complicate, but to provide valuable aids in memorising ultimately making learning the complexities of neurology much easier. The diagrams are all aided by text that is written in note-form, keeping only to the pertinent points and saving the reader valuable time trudging through unnecessary prose.
A prime example of this is seen in the "limb weakness" section. Rather than attempting to narrate what occurs when a lesion is proximal or distal - a fault of mainly neurology books - this book adopts simplified diagrams to convey the points that are relevant and vital. Also, clinical features of a condition are kept to only those that are classical to that pathology and more importantly, they are all explained with relation to the pathology. Together it means the important clinical features are remembered and can be reasoned in-front of a belligerent consultant (much to their annoyance).

This book is so well written and illustrated, that your neurology notes from exam revision will be more or less this book written word for word.

The only minus point is that on first glance this book looks like a basic neurology text that is only suitable for a first year. Upon reading however, this is quickly shown to be false and it actually provides a valuable source for all those involved in medical care, irrespective of qualification.

Its layout is simple, easy to use and allows the book to be used as either a quick reference or as a comphrensive neurology book. Most importantly, the style of the book means that you remember the facts for the bedside, and retain them come exam time. Few medical textbooks can make that claim