Eagle RC Jr: Eye Pathology: An Atlas and Basic Text, 306 pp, Philadelphia, W.B. Saunders, 1999 ($155.00).

Here is a book that intends to fill the gap between a textbook and a manual in ophthalmic pathology. To this end the author provides a comprehensive text and a good selection of illustrations, arranged in a topographic fashion matching the current ophthalmologic subspecialties. The book includes chapters on diseases of the ocular globe, the lacrimal apparatus, and the orbit. There is also a chapter titled ‘Laboratory Techniques and Special Stainings,‘ describing the techniques for the examination and processing of enucleated ocular globes. It also emphasizes the necessary communications between practitioners of ophthalmology and pathology.

Each chapter in this book begins with a comprehensive presentation of main categories of eye disease, followed by an introduction to the various ophthalmologic conditions and a list of pertinent references. The illustrations make up the bulk of the work. There are also some diagrams. Overall, almost all clinical photographs, gross pathology photographs, and microphotographs are of high quality and masterfully presented. Those dealing with cataracts and glaucoma are most welcome because their histopathology is frequently overlooked despite the fact that these are very common diseases. Each illustration has an appropriately descriptive legend. The emphasis is on diagnostic features of each disease, and, accordingly, most photographs deal with the usual rather than the unusual aspects of ophthalmic pathology. However, because many pathologists have never seen the cytoplasmic inclusions of chlamydial conjunctivitis (trachoma), why not include them in this basic text?

The author certainly has accomplished a great task and has produced a very useful book that will be used by residents in ophthalmology and pathology, but also by practicing ophthalmologists and interested pathologists. It conveys a unitary outlook of the subject that only a lifetime experience and single authorship could allow. As a hardcover volume in a landscape format, it can be kept conveniently open during a pathologic dissection of the eye, or next to the microscope while the student is trying to match the microscopic specimen with well-chosen pictures in this atlas.