Many drugs used in current anesthetic practice are administered intravenously. An appreciation of their kinetics and dynamics is of great assistance in determining the most appropriate drug to use, and optimal dosage regimens for any given patient. This book is specially oriented to the requirements of anesthesiologists. It will enable the student of those subjects to gain enough knowledge to make these subjects usable in daily anesthetic practice. As such it is intermediate in difficulty between mathematically oriented texts, and those which only offer a very qualitative understanding of these subjects. Practical applications and examples of the uses to which kinetic and dynamic principles can be put in daily practice are emphasized and illustrated. Basic principles and techniques with which the reader can perform kinetic and dynamic calculations are explained simply and demonstrated in detail using examples derived from clinical practice. Two appendices provide kinetic and dynamic data on the most commonly used anesthetic drugs. The last chapters use the principles discussed in the first chapters to show how variations of normal physiology and disease affect drug kinetics and dynamics. This is especially valuable to the clinician as it enables clinically useful, albeit qualitative, predictions to be made of the direction of any change of kinetic and dynamic parameters of drugs due to these factors.

Dr. G. M. Woerlee is well known in my department both as a clinician and teacher. Years ofexperience have taught him that the problems discussed here have as yet not been treated in this way in any single work. In my opinion there is a real need for such abook, not only for resident and specialist anaesthetists, but also among surgeons and internists, specialist and trainee. Management of a patient in the operating room is a matter of teamwork, and knowledge of the problems encountered is the basis of any mutual understanding The information which has been assembled and clearly presented in this book should prove to be of great assistance in guiding our patients though an important phase of their lives. Professor Dr. Joh. Spierdijk, Department of Anaesthesia, University Hospital of Leyden, The Netherlands. vii PREFACE Much of the literature being published in the field of anesthesiology today concerns a narrow, in-depth scrutiny of a specific area or anesthetic technique that does not provide the novice with an overview ofthe perioperativeperiod and the commoneveryday problems faced by the anesthetist. Dr G. M. Woerlee of the University of Leiden with his book, "Com mon Perioperative Problems and the Anaesthetist," has filled a void in the current anes thetic literature. Dr Woerlee reviews in a straightforward, no-frills manner problems routinely encountered during the perioperative period. Other anesthesia textbooks do not cover the material in quite the same logical, step-by-step fashion."

"Illusory Souls" differs from all other books discussing the reality of the human soul. Marcel Proust once said, "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." So "Illusory Souls" distils the fundamental properties of the human soul from a multitude of sources, to reveal the wonderful consistency of these properties as derived from millennia of belief in the reality of an immaterial human soul. Near-death experiences and out-of-body experiences provide even more information. These properties of the human soul include manifestations of consciousness, aspects of the mind-body relationship, the location of memory, and many others. Amazingly, many of the commonly believed properties of the human soul are amenable to study with medicine, physiology, and in particular by the effects of anesthesia on the human body. Study of the properties of the human soul as revealed by medical science unveils the hallucinatory nature of out-of-body experiences, and near-death experiences, as well as new insights into their causation. Furthermore, this unique and systematic medical analysis of the properties of the human soul, ultimately reveals the illusory nature of this ancient human belief, together with the necessity for new philosophies based upon fact.

The Unholy Legacy of Abraham shows how human body function apparently proves the reality of the soul, an eternal afterlife, and God, as well as discussing the consequences of literal interpretation of texts in the Torah, Bible, and Koran.

Gerry's Real World Guide to Pharmacokinetics & Other Things teaches the basic elements of pharmacokinetics of anesthetic drugs in the form of conversations between a curmudgeonly older anesthesiologist and an anesthesia resident as they administer anesthesia.