Essential medical genetics / J.M. Connor, M.A. Ferguson-Smith.

  • Connor, J. M. (James Michael), 1951-
Date:
1984
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: Essential medical genetics / J.M. Connor, M.A. Ferguson-Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/292 (page VII)
    Preface A genetic component is evident in the aetiology of most human diseases. Hence a knowledge of medical genetics is essential for all practitioners of medicine. Only a few years ago such knowledge had to be self-taught but medical genetics is now included in most medical and dental undergraduate curricula. This book was produced to meet the needs of medical and dental undergraduates for an inexpensive yet comprehensive account of basic principles and clinical applications of modern medical genetics. We also hope that it may be of value to postgraduates who qualified prior to the advenr of formal medical genetics tuition. The text is divided into two sections reflecting our preclinical and clinical lecture courses, developed since their inception in 1963. Over these years the growth in knowledge about the mechanisms of heredity in health and disease has been dramatic and increasingly prevention and treatment of genetic diseases is now possible. This is reflected by the development of medical genetics from a purely academic discipline into a clinical speciality. We have chosen human rather than animal examples of disease to illustrate basic principles, and have sought to emphasise practical ways in which these principles can be applied in medical practice, basing what we teach on our everyday experience in the clinics and laboratories which provide the West of Scotland Regional Genetics Service. We thus include what we regard as essential for medical genetics practice and provide, where necessary, references to specialised texts where the reader may find more extensive coverage of areas of particular interest. Despite the recent rapid advances, there are still many areas of genetics which are ill-understood. We include these recent advances but also take the less usual step for an undergraduate text of indicating the areas which need further research. Thus we hope to discourage the common undergraduate misconception that nothing is left to discover in this or for that matter any other branch of medicine. J M Connor MA Ferguson-Smith vii