Cope`s Early Diagnosis of the Acute Abdomen, 22nd Edition

This classic text is much beloved by medical students and
physicians-in-training throughout the English-speaking world, as its
many editions indicate. It is chock full of the pearls of clinical
wisdom that students and practitioners treasure, and many of these
lessons apply to medicine in general. The book was well characterized by
a reviewer of an earlier edition for The New England Journal of
Medicine: \'If only one book about surgery could be made available to
physicians from all specialties, it should probably be Silen\'s recent
revision of Cope\'s Early Diagnosis of the Acute Abdomen. Since the book
first appeared, it has remained the classic treatise on the initial
approach to abdominal pain.\' Because acute, severe abdominal pain is
still a common problem whose misdiagnosis can result in quick death,
each generation of beginning physicians is faced with the urgency of
learning to make a diagnosis in this high-anxiety situation, and they
appreciate the wise, humane, precisely detailed guidance offered by Cope
and Silen. For the 22nd Edition, Dr. Silen has again updated the text
in a respectful but significant way. He has added a chapter on the
increasing disorder of diverticulitis, reexamines the use of analgesics,
emphasizes the costs of over-testing, and updates all recommendations
regarding trauma, radiologic studies, and therapeutic recommendations.