LETTERS TO TRICIA

Pediatrician Holmes' letter-borne information about babies to his daughter is presented in the notion that ""in similar books.... The gold of information about the common diseases was scattered through a veritable mountain of rock about the rarer diseases."" In the first place, this is Just not true; in the second place, speaking of scatteration, Dr. Holmes is a little hard to follow when in his first chapter, on choosing a doctor, he divagates onto the use of antibiotics, iron and liver, etc. Three chapters follow on colds, allergies and tonsils and adenoids. There's one on the colicky baby which assures you, however suppositiously, that he turns out the most attractive. The doctor does get down to the ""common diseases"" but skips scarlet fever. (Is it obsolete, along with diphtheria and infantile paralysis?) There's a bit about thumb sucking and toilet training and nothing about feeding. Obviously his coverage is as spotty as prickly heat. And the problem for other Tricias will be in using this book unless it is very well indexed (we have not seen the index). Anyway we stand firm: Dr. Spock is the rock.