The Journal of Emergency Medicine. Vol 1, pp. 179-I 80. 1983 PrInted in the USA ??CopyrIght 0 1983 Pergamon Press Ltd

??FIRST CARE: EMERGENCY GUIDE FOR FIRST RESPONDERS. By Sheryle Wills and Sharyn Tremblay. 384 pp. Denver, Multimedia Publishing Inc., 1981. $12.95.

0 PHARMACOLOGY AND THERAPEUTlCS IN EMERGENCY CARE. By Stephen Margolis and Jonathan Wasserberger. 408 pp. Denver, Multimedia Publishing Inc., 1981. $13.95.

The number of textbooks aimed at the pre-hospital personnel of the emergency medical services system has increased lo- garithmically in the past 15 years. One of the earliest texts was the Ohio Trade and Industrial Education Manual entitled the Emergency Rescue Squad. Now in its fourth edition, it has been renamed Emer- gency Victim Care. Other works include Emergency Care and Transportation of the Sick and Injured by the American Acad- emy of Orthopedic Surgeons, Emergency Care by Grant and Murray, and Emergen- cy Care: Principles and Practices for the EMT-Paramedic by Gazzaniga, Iseri, and Baren. Most of these texts have been used to train EMTs and paramedics throughout the United States. In 1979 Nancy Caroline, MD, authored a work entitled Emergency Care in the Streets, and this has become the textbook for pre-hospital care training and the standard by which new works should be compared. The two works reviewed here, First Care and Pharmacology and Thera- peutics in Emergency Care, are new addi- tions to the literature of pre-hospital care. First Care is aimed at the first responder who is a non-EMT and who may be a po- lice officer, a fire fighter, or other person who comes in contact with the public on a daily basis but is not normally a deliverer of medical care. The training of the first responder is basically the Red Cross First

Aid Course with a few modifications. The Department of Transportation has set up a 40-hour first-responder course; however, CPR and basic life support are not a re- quirement for completion of the course. Most of what is contained in First Care can be found in the previously mentioned works in pre-hospital care. Many areas are sim- plified to the point of error and become un- necessary. The text at times becomes over- ly melodramatic when describing “real life” situations at the beginning of several of the chapters. The format of using boldfaced type, all capitals and italics in combination in one paragraph for emphasis is quite dis- tracting and makes reading difficult. The illustrations seem to be used primarily to fill space throughout the text. For example, an illustration in the chapter on “Basic Anatomy” is suppose to represent move- ment and show relaxation and contraction. It does none of these things and would probably only confuse someone unfamiliar with the terms. Most of the line drawings and flow diagrams are equally confusing. Some of the photographs demonstrating patient transportation handling are good, but are not enough to redeem the work. Overall, the virtues of this text do not out- weigh the glaring defects and the first re- sponder would be wise to spend his money for Caroline’s Emergency Care in the Streets.

In contrast to First Care, Pharmacology

Book Reviews, coordinated by Edward J. Otten, MD, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, keeps readers informed of important publications in the emergency medi- cine field.

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