BOOK REVIEWS
Book Review Editor: Kenneth S. Robson, M.D.
Annual Progress in Child Psychiatry and Child Devel-
opment 1985. Edited by Stella Chess and Alexander
Thomas. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1986,664 pp.,
$40.00
Reviewed by Stephen P. Herman, M.D. *
For the past 17 years, Chess and Thomas have com-
piled this Annual, which has allowed the various child-
related disciplines to take a peek at each other's work.
The compendium for 1985 includes 36 articles grouped
under the following headings: Infancy Studies, Devel-
opmental Issues, Family Studies, Maternal Employ-
ment Outside The Home, Temperament Studies,
Cross-Cultural Temperament Studies, Developmental
Disorders, Clinical Issues, and Social Issues. As with
any well-stocked smorgasbord feast, there is plenty
here to appeal to most anyone in the field. However,
readers will undoubtedly pick and choose various se-
lections to their liking and skip others. This is not a
book easily read cover to cover, but reviewing the
chapter introductions and abstracts will give one a
good overview of the contents and will facilitate the
reader's own selection process.
A book review of an annual is really a two-stage
review. One must comment upon the editors' choice
of articles to be included as well as upon the quality
of the articles themselves. Naturally, the choice of
articles reflects the particular interests of the editors.
Thus, Chess and Thomas have included ten articles
on temperament, and these provide a comprehensive
overview of recent work being done in this area.
Plomin and Daniels' article on methodology and Ler-
ner's on tests of a goodness of fit model might be slow
going for the clinician wanting more prose and less
arithmetic sprinkled over the buffet, but Hertzig and
Mittleman's paper on temperament in low birthweight
children provides important information for clinicians
and ultimately for the families they treat. The cross-
cultural studies on temperament in East African chil-
dren are fascinating. One hopes that more of these
articles will appear in future reviews. They allow cli-
nicians and researchers to expand their minds and
fight off the tendency toward myopic involvement in
one's work.
In fact, the enormous benefit of this annual is that
the articles chosen do force the reader to consider
critically what might be all too readily accepted in the
• Dr. Herman is Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Cor-
nell Medical College, New York.
field. The rather optimistic theme interwoven
throughout this volume is that human characteristics
can change over time and that development is open to
influence from a multitude of external and internal
factors. Included is a seminal paper by Clarke and
Clarke stressing that there are factors which mitigate
against constancy and, in fact, a potential for ope-
nendedness in child development. The argument that
environment and life experiences are quite important
and interact with innate temperament is stated from
the early childhood side in a paper by Lamb et al. and
considered from the vantage point of the adult years
in articles by Long and Vaillant and by Quinton,
Rutter and Liddle.
In addition to the original articles compiled by the
authors, a number of review articles are of particular
interest. Siegel's review of the literature on children
of working mothers provides reassurance that these
children are not much different from their peers whose
mothers remain at home. Derdeyn and Scott's article
on joint custody puts this highly visible and often
misunderstood concept under critical scrutiny and is
must reading for those involved in custody disputes.
An important article on the dubious diagnosis of con-
duct disorder by Lewis et al., and Tanguay's call for
more precise classification of childhood psychopathol-
ogy allow the reader to question basic assumptions
inherent in the DSM -III. There are several articles on
autism, depression and mental retardation and a re-
view article on the Tourette Disorder by King and
Ollendick, which will serve as a good introduction but
lacks recent citations, most likely due to the lagtime
in publication and reprinting in this collection.
In summary, the 1985 edition of this Annual suc-
ceeds in presenting a good overview of important work
being done in the everwidening field of child develop-
ment and psychiatry. In questioning certain previ-
ously held "truths" in the literature, many of these
articles give the reader permission to think critically
and keep an open mind about a huge field of study
which itself is undergoing constant change and devel-
opment.
Textbook of Child Neurology, Ed. 3. By John H.
Menkes. Philadelphia: Lea & Febiger, 1985,827 pp.,
$58.50.
Reviewed by N. Paul Rosman, M.D. *
• Dr. Rosman is Professor of Pediatrics and Neurology, Tufts
University School of Medicine, and Chief, Division of Pediatric
NeuroloJO', Floating Hospital for Infants and Children, New Eng-
land Medical Center Hospitals, Hoston.
732 BOOK REVIEWS
The third edition of Menkes' Textbook of Child Neu-
rology has maintained the excellence of its predeces-
sors. The beauty of the book is that it manages, in
nonencyclopedic fashion, to address virtually all areas
important to professionals dealing with neurological
disorders in infants, children and adolescents. Fur-
ther, it does so in a "no words wasted" yet highly
readable manner, stressing areas of greatest clinical
relevance, including reference to new investigative
technologies of importance (such as PET scanning
and nuclear magnetic resonance).
Like earlier editions, this one has sections of partic-
ular strength; once again, the chapter on Metabolic
Diseases of the Nervous System leads the way, as
might be expected from Menkes' many contributions
and acknowledged expertise in that field. This does
result, however, in certain notable imbalances. For
example, 11 112 pages are devoted to phenylketonuris
and hyperphenylalaninemia, while only three pages
are spent on intraventricular/periventricular hemor-
rhage! There are five pages on galactosemia, but only
31/2 on migraine and 11/2 on posttraumatic epilepsy.
Other particularly excellent chapters include the ones
dealing with Infections of the Nervous System, Tu-
mors of the Nervous System, Paroxysmal Disorders
and a new chapter on the Neurological Manifestations
of Systemic Disease.
Many clinical subsections are particularly good, in-
cluding the discussions of the dysraphic states; hydro-
cephalus; complications of perinatal asphyxia/trauma,
including the cerebral palsies; intracranial hyperten-
sion following postnatal trauma, management of sei-
zures; epidural and subdural hematomas, and language
and attentional disorders of childhood.
While the clinical material overall is succinct yet
informative, a few omissions merit comment. There is
no discussion of treatment of post-hemorrhagic hy-
drocephalus of the newborn. In the section dealing
with treatment of status epilepticus, the rate of IV
administration is not given for phenobarbitol or
phenytoin, nor is there mention of the need for si-
multaneous cardiac monitoring when phenytoin is
given IV. The section on the treatment of migraine is
excessively brief, for it contains no mention of general
symptomatic measures or use of anticonvulsants; and
biofeedback, which has become an important thera-
peutic adjunct in migraine, is mentioned in a single
sentence (after yoga and karate!).
The book contains a number of very useful tables
such as those summarizing causes of recurrent meta-
bolic acidosis in infants and childhood; lipid storage
diseases; structural autosomal anomalies associated
with neurologic symptoms; common causes for pro-
found hearing loss in childhood; protozoan and para-
sitic infections of the nervous system; neurologic pic-
tures of spinal cord injuries; congenital myopathies;
and conditions producing hypocalcemia and hypomag-
nesemia with neurologic symptoms. On the other
hand, certain information hardly seems to have mer-
ited presentation in tabular form, such as rarely en-
countered defects of amino acids with neurologic
symptoms; variants of galactosemia; characteristics of
rarer fungal infections of the nervous system; neuro-
logical symptoms and signs in 15 children with sys-
temic lupus erythematosus (based on an abstract from
1960); and causes of isolated facial palsy observed
between 1943 and 1950.
The index is quite comprehensive, though there are
some inadequacies. For example, when looking for
"intraventricular hemorrhage," I could find it under
neither "intraventricular" nor "hemorrhage" (finally
locating it in the pages referenced under "hemorrhage,
perinatal, due to prematurity and asphyxia"). Mag-
netic resonance imaging is not mentioned, requiring
one to remember to look it up under "nuclear magnetic
resonance," and there is no listing for either "memory"
or "dementia."
Errors in the text are uncommon but there are a
few, such as the statement: "No family of two or more
affected siblings (with tuberous sclerosis) has been
encountered in which one parent did not have ade-
noma sebaceum or some other skin lesion character-
istic for tuberous sclerosis. (Wilson and Carter, in
fact, have reported such a family; Lancet 1:340, 1978.)
The illustrations are of uniformly good quality and
the references that follow each chapter are well chosen
and current (up to 1985).
Despite a few limitations, none of them major,
Menkes' textbook continues to be the best single
textbook of child neurology. It is a book that will
continue to be of great value to students, profession-
als-in-training and those already trained in pediatric
neurology and other fields with an interest in disorders
of the developing nervous system.
The Moral Life of Children. By Robert Coles. Boston/
New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986, 302
pp., $19.95.
Reviewed by Glenn H. Miller, M.D. *
In this, his 36th book (published simultaneously with
The Political Life of Children), Robert Coles aims to
describe the moral life of children. As usual, he pre-
sents interviews of children everywhere: poor southern
• Dr. Miller is Associate Clinical Professor of Psvchiatrv and the
Behavioral Sciences, the George Washington Uni~ersity School of
Medicine. and Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown University
Law School, hoth in Washington. D.C.