Publisher's Synopsis
This reference is written for health care students with a limited science background. The first section details the general mechanisms of disease such as immunity, inflammation and allergy, and includes chapters on hereditary diseases, nutritional diseases, obesity, and alcoholism. The second section addresses the diseases of the system including signs and symptoms, frequently ordered tests, diagnosis, treatments and prognosis. Each chapter is introduced with a description of the normal anatomy and physiology of the system and diseases are explained in terms of anatomic or physiologic malfunction. The last chapter investigates stress and ageing.;New terms are explained as they arise in the text and difficult ones are highlighted in bold type to aid comprehension as well as being incorporated into a glossary. The meanings of root words, prefixes and suffixes is stressed to aid the build-up of a good medical vocabulary.
