WA Douthwaite

Elsevier Ltd, Edinburgh, 420 pp, Price: £49.99. ISBN: 0-7506-8879-3

This book is a very comprehensive review of the optical properties and effects of contact lenses on vision. Chapter 1 is a brief review of refractive errors and spectacle lenses. Chapters 2–4 introduce the optics of contact lenses, and the remaining seven chapters cover more advanced topics as well as keratometry and topography, contact lens design (mostly rigid lenses), astigmatism, and corneal shape.

The text is largely theoretical (this book makes no pretence about that and there are other books which cover more practical, clinical aspects of contact lens fitting). The mathematical concepts are well illustrated with worked examples and clear diagrams and there is a useful collection of computer programs (on a CD ROM) that allow one to immediately apply the techniques described. This is not a book that one would choose to pick up and read for fun, but it would be a very useful reference for students of Optometry, pre-registration Optometrists, and those studying for their DCLP, and maybe for the very keen Ophthalmology or Orthoptics student. For most experienced contact lens practitioners and hospital optometrists, the book is arguably less useful, simply because much of this information would be at their fingertips already.