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Maurice J. Mahoney of Yale University. This is a useful summary of the current status of a growth area in obstetric practice.

A second special article by Dr. Douglas J. Marchant of Tufts University deals with urinary incontinence and is written from his perspective of a vast clinical experience and defines a systematic and clear approach to the management of urinary incontinence which will be of interest to operative gynaecologists.

The Year Book has its enthusiastic adherents and one can see why they find this such a useful aid to keeping up with the literature and keeping abreast of develop- ments in the related subjects in obstetrics and gynaecology. It is recommended for its usefulness, helpful comments and also for the excellent reviews and comments included, not only for the established obstetricians and gynaecologists but also for trainees.

M. ELSTEIN

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Independence Training for Visually Handicapped Children by Doris Tooze Croom Helm Ltd., London, U.K. 1981, $6.95 (paperback)

This book has been written to help parents and teachers develop independence in blind children. Its emphasis is on those totally blind from birth rather those with partial sight or those who have become blind after a sighted childhood.

It is a short readable book (only 100 pages) divided into six chapters, and is written in a straightforward practical manner. In the first chapter three essential factors for independence are discussed, these being orientation, mobility and daily life skills. The starting point for independence is ‘orientation’ which is the ability to understand the relationship that objects have to one another. Emphasis is placed on body awareness and the use of many other senses to compensate for visual loss, such as hearing, touch and kinaesthesis. Under ‘Mobility’ fairly detailed descriptions of a number of mobility aids are critically discussed, although the author points out that often by far the most useful and widely used aid is a ‘sighted person’. In the second chapter the author discusses under ‘Becoming Aware of the Environment’ the many ways the blind preschool child can be stimulated into exploring a variety of situations. This chapter would be particularly helpful for sighted parents who are trying to teach their blind baby listening, climbing and balancing skills as well as developing social bonds through a number of musical and tactile games. Such games are, of course, basic to cognitive and social development in sighted children but have to be subtly modified to be played by blind children.

The third and fourth chapters concentrate of the skills necessary for everyday life such as self feeding, dressing and walking. Particularly useful are the detailed descriptions of various games such as ‘Tom Tiddler’s Ground’ and ‘What’s the time Mr. Wolf’ which have been adapted for blind or partially sighted children.

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For true independence a blind person must not only be able to cope with familar situations but explore and travel in unfamiliar surroundings. To do this various ‘mobility’ techniques must be utilised. The last two chapters explain a number of these techniques such as trailing, squaring off and centring., Particular emphasis is put on sighted guide techniques as well as the use of the Long Cane which was originally developed in America for rehabilitation of Army personnel. In Chapter 6 a detailed syllabus is given to enable the blind to achieve complete independence in a new outside environment. The use and making of ingenious recessed and tape maps is discussed so that such a syllabus could be individually designed by parents and teachers to meet the needs of a particular blind child.

This book makes no pretence to cover the emotional and social side of indepen- dence development in blind infants and children as thoroughly or as imaginatively as it does the physical side. Its coverage of the latter is detailed, comprehensive and yet readable. It is a useful book, concentrating on many of the areas of training which if neglected set the blind apart from the sighted. It emphasises the importance of early training and the development of lifelong good habits which will enable the blind to enter fully into society and explore without fear the world around them.

JANE’ITE ATKINSON

Progress in Clinical and Biological Research, Vol. 61 Nutrition and Child Health Perspectives for the 1980’s Reginald C. Tsang and Bufor Lee Nichols, Jr. (Eds.) Alan R. Liss, Inc., New York, 198 1 238 pages; g15.00 (DM 66.00)

This volume presents the Proceedings of the 21st Annual Meeting of the Ameri- can College of Nutrition held in September 1980. There are 8 invited contributions and 66 abstracts of scientific communications. All the main speakers dealt with some aspect of nutrition in childhood. The first, on malnutrition and the intestine by Lifshitz, Teichberg and Wapnir, makes it clear that rats are rather poor models for human infants when it comes to intestinal disorders associated with protein-energy malnutrition. Many of the morphological and functional changes seen in children do not occur in rats, and it is suggested that this is because enteric infections, common in malnourished children, play an important part in producing the abnormalities in their intestines.

The second contribution, by James and Sahakian, is entitled ‘Overgrowth: En- ergetic Significance in Relation to Obesity’. It is a long paper, and describes the rise and fall of the fat cell hypothesis to explain obesity and the proposal that individual differences in energy requirements and tendency to or not to become obese are due to differences between individuals in thermogenesis, i.e., rise in metabolism and heat production after meals. The authors describe their own idea that dietary fat is the