Talk:Book - Human fetal endocrines (1980)

Book Review by F. De Prins

European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology Human Fetal Endocrines J.E. Jirasek Martinus Nijhoff Publishers BV, The Hague, 1980 Dfl. 82.00 (224 pp.) ‘Human fetal endocrines’ by Jan E. Jirasek concerns the embryonic development, the histology, the pathologic anatomy and the function of the endocrine glands during fetal life. It is interesting to find in one book current knowledge on items so diverse as placental HCG secretion and fetal parathyroid regulation of calcium levels in plasma. However, this book is disfigured by many shortcomings. It looks as if there were a competition between the number of grammatical mistakes and the number of misprints. The lay-out of the. book is very poor and old fashioned. The table of contents refers to some 60 items on one page and covers 5 pages of very small print. Figures and photographs are included without mentioning the origin. As for the contents, the title of this book misleads the potential reader. This is not a textbook on fetal endocrinology, it is a textbook on embryonic and fetal morphol- ogy. Eighty percent of the work is devoted to embryology, phylogenesis, histology, pathologic anatomy and comparative anatomy. There is only one figure of the chemical structure of a hormone but there are almost 100 pictures of histologic sections of fetal organs. Over 100 pages deal with the production of steroid hormones but the steroid molecule structure will be looked for in vain in this book. The histologic subdivision of molar disease, covering 4 pages, has nothing to do with fetal endocrinology. Moreover, it is no longer of clinical value and it has long been replaced by the follow-up of HCG f-subunit concentrations in plasma both as a criterion for prognosis and as a guide for therapy. The hypothesis on the onset of labor by the distension of the amnion by accumulation of amniotic fluid may be original but it does not explain the earlier onset of labor in cases of intrauterine growth retardation where the amount of amniotic fluid usually is reduced. Neither does it explain the onset of labor in cases of Potter’s syndrome or in cases of urethral stenosis. The chapter on the fetal endocrine pancreas is not up-to-date. De-cells are not considered to be heterogenous anymore. The presence of gastrin producing cells has been questioned. The author claims that epinephrine and norepinephrine stimulate insulin secretion although in the next paragraph he claims epinephrine and norepinephrine inhibit insulin secretion. The positive correlation between amniotic insulin levels and fetal age or fetal weight, mentioned by the author, has been disproved in more recent work. It is not clear for whom this book is written. It is too specialized for medical students, it is of no use for medical practitioners and it does not offer anything new for scientific workers. F. De Prins, Leuven