A physician with a broad consultative practice, Dr. Floch combines his
clinical experience with a zeal for exploring what has been written by
others. Chief of Medicine at the Norwalk Hospital for the past decade
and still an active consult- ing gastroenterologist, Dr. Floch has given
us a volume which every clinician dealing with digestive disorders will
want to have at his or her desk. Not everyone will agree with all that
Dr. Floch has prescribed in the way of detailed dietary help for the
common afflictions of mankind's gut, but in this book the reader can get
at the background of the controversy. All clinicians have had problems
in assessing when to use elemental diets, how to apply advances in
peripheral and intravenous alimentation, and in many other matters which
are discussed in detail in this fine volume. Dr. Floch displays what is
available in dietary therapy, evaluates the nutritional inadequacies
surrounding most diges- tive disturbances, and calmly evaluates
competing claims. He gives a brief overview of gastrointestinal
physiology pertaining to an understanding of nutri- tional complications
as well as the genesis of the major gastrointestinal dis- orders. In
this sense his book can be read as a mini-physiological text. I am
delighted to have this book in our gastrointestinal series and I hope
that the reader will profit from it as much as I have.