Edited by M Donaghy (Pp 1242, £150.00). Published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001. ISBN 0192626183

• nervous system

Lord Brain left us two neurological textbooks. The smaller, Brain's clinical neurology, subsequently revised by Sir Roger Bannister, is known affectionately as “Little Brain”. Diseases of the nervous system, or “Big Brain”, remained a single author work until the 9th edition. By then, it had passed into the hands of Lord Walton, who brought in 12 coauthors for the 10th edition. This 11th edition, completely revised under the new leadership of Michael Donaghy, has contributions from 14 authors, all working in British institutions.

The decision to continue with relatively few contributors, all from the same country, might have laid the book open to charges of being parochial or elitist. However, the result is a volume with a cohesive style where unnecessary overlap has largely been avoided and omissions are few.

Even nowadays, there is only a handful of standard neurology reference …