Reviews and Notes: A Dictionary of Epidemiology

3rd edition. JM Last; ed. 180 pages. New York: Oxford Univ Pr; 1995. $16.95. ISBN 0195096681. Order phone 800-451-7556.

Why review a small dictionary on the market long enough to get to a third edition? There is ample reason. The first edition came out in 1983. “Epidemiology” is no longer only a tag for the field epidemiology once was: the study of disease outbreaks, prevalences of chronic diseases, and other questions about populations. Its then-small sibling, “clinical epidemiology,” has grown well past adolescence and talks its own talk. And there is the not-yet tersely named discipline of “clinical trials research,” which some clinical epidemiologists claim as part of the family. So this dictionary had to push out its boundaries to cover all of the terms that can be considered epidemiologic.

But surely a general medical dictionary, such as Stedman's Medical Dictionary, is …