This edition is a typical hard-covered text, with several new sections, quite different from the first edition, which was a red and white coil-bound soft cover manual. All of the original topics are covered, but the text has been expanded to include sections on: Analgesia/Anesthesia, Drug Infusion Charts, Environmental, Exotic/Small Mammals, Hematology, Oncology and Immunology, Pediatric and Neonatal, Toxicities and Male and Female Urogenital emergencies. The original manual drew from the knowledge of 10 contributing authors while this second edition has 35 contributors, most of them specialists in their area of study.
The entire book is clearly written and easy to follow. The table of contents lists 24 sections alphabetically in bold print with 110 chapters forming subsections. The author’s use of indenting and boldface print in the body of the text allows quick reference while also combining a much more in-depth study of all topics covered for those requiring further detail.
The text includes many easy to follow diagnostic/treatment flowcharts. Chapter 3 provides a detailed emergency drug cart stocking list itemized drawer by drawer. The author has also included several examples of in-house records, for example, patient hospitalization records, and control drug logs.
Most chapters end with a “further reading section” and where drugs are mentioned, a detailed pharmacology section follows covering all the drugs discussed in the chapter.
After reading only a couple of chapters, I realized that this book would become the first reference I would reach for when I needed both a quick answer for a specific case or further reference for an ongoing situation.