The book is very concise and contains many beautiful color photomicrographs. The text is easy to read, being written with in a plain English style. Because of the relatively large number of micrographs relative to the amount of text, the book may be classified as a text-atlas.
The book covers almost all aspects of histology, including the origin of the tissues, histological techniques, and possible artefacts found in microscopic slides (first chapter, Introduction). One of the highlights of the book is the use of “clinical correlates” for each chapter, giving some examples of the application of information. Although the inclusion of clinical correlates is not new in a histology text, the readers of this book would likely be the students in the first phase of the veterinary program who do not have enough vocabulary to understand some of the examples. Therefore, the clinical correlates, which, in this book, are typical histopathology, are of considerable value.
The authors also made interesting and relevant statements in the preface about the recent trends of diminishing hours in the veterinary curriculum for teaching histology; veterinary educators continue to seek adequate depth and breadth of the essential foundation courses. This book may have intended to fulfill that purpose, by acting as a supplement to the classroom teaching. It has most of the required ingredients, including some immunohistochemistry, which has become a routine practice in diagnostic laboratories. Moreover, since companion animal practitioners have been treating an increasing number of diverse animal species, information on birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish is most valuable.
One of the serious flaws of this book is that the authors have not used the anatomical nomenclature being recommended by the World Congress of Veterinary Anatomists and the Haematological Society. Learning the terminology and criteria for the identification of cells in peripheral blood and bone marrow is one of the prime objectives of teaching veterinary histology, and if the students cannot use the same terminology in clinical pathology, they will have wasted their effort. In addition, there are several errors in identification of the cells. One example is that an avian heterophil was shown as an eosinophil. The canine eosinophil-specific granules are not rod-shaped, as the book describes, but the authors might have been confused with the dog and cat eosinophils. It is understandable that one would find some errors or omissions in a book of this nature. However, some of the errors and inaccuracies in the text and captions for the illustrations are so fundamental that students will be embarrassed or even penalized if they use such information.
One example of an error in the text is the statement “This (blood-thymus barrier) prevents the thymocytes differentiating into antibody forming plasma cells.” It has been very well known in immunology for decades that B cells give rise to plasma cells and thymocytes become T cells. In addition, there are numerous misidentifications of structures. Examples include the horse olfactory mucous membrane, which was identified as respiratory epithelium. Moreover, in that figure, the olfactory nerve (filia), which resembles smooth muscle fibers, was mislabeled as smooth muscle. The same photograph at a higher magnification in a different chapter appears to have been identified as the olfactory mucous membrane. Another serious mistake is in the digestive system in which there is a confusion between the crypts and the simple tubular glands. Depressions seen on the surfaces of the intestinal villi due to the contraction of the smooth muscle were described as the crypts or as contracted crypts. Such errors of identification or labeling are difficult to explain.
In addition, some of the routine and special stains did not appear to be accurately described. For example, the hematoxylin and eosin stain appeared completely blue or yellow in some figures. Further, some special stains were applied for no obvious purpose. One such example is Van Giesen's elastic stain, which was used on the ureter to demonstrate the elastic fibers. Collagen fibers appeared light reddish brown and elastic fibres were supposed to appear red. The Weigert's elastin stain being used in the previous chapter (on connective tissue) would have shown the elastic fibers as black. It appears that the authors have chosen esthetics over science in their selection of figures. In spite of the flaws, this book has the potential to become a good study aid for veterinary students, if subjected to appropriate revision.