Herewe offer anew approach to understanding and managing common medical
conditions. With the needs of our readers in mind we present clearer,
more extensive and more expansive views on them. Traditional medical
textbooks are wordy tomes with well worn patterns dealing in set order
with 'causes, symptoms and signs, diagnosis and treatment'. They offer
formal instant snapshots of diseases. We have devised an economic
synoptic style, and we have endeavoured to give acomprehensive and an
on-going long term movepicture ofeach condition and to relate this to
the analysisofsymptoms and signs, to diagnostic assessment and to
management and treatment. We have selected 22 important conditions and
for eachhave followed the same sequence of questions and answers: - What
is it? giving a brief summary of the current understanding of the nature
of the condition. - Who gets it when? showing the age-sex distributions
and influence ofother factors such as social class, international
comparisons, andtheirlikelyfrequency ingeneralpractice and at the
district general hospital. - What happens? analysing the significance of
symptoms and signs, the likely course and outcome and how these
influence care. - What to do? an appreciation of the nature and
presentation of the condition, and their relevance to diagnosis and
management.