This new edition brings together five leading authorities in nail surgery in this well established and definitive textbook. The entire text is extended in this edition, and particular emphasis is placed on the advances in treatments that have taken place in recent years. Considerable strides have been made in the treatment of fungal diseases (onychomycoses) with the appearance of new therapeutic agents. There is also much greater coverage of nail surgery to reflect the increasing involvement of the dermatologist in this field. The section on nail tumours has also been expanded. Drs Baran and Dawber have been joined by David de Berker, Eckhart Haneke and Antonella Tosti on the editorial team. This move is representative of the major European contribution to the field of nail surgery in recent years. Significant contribution has come from Dr Elvin Zook, the eminent American hand surgeon, who has helped to ensure that the book is as relevant in North America as it is in Europe.

Although produced in controversy, this book is not a controversial work. The calming effects of the years that have passed since the tumultuous days in Lubeck are enough to guarantee that these pages will accurately trace the coming and going of opinions, the battle for the truth and the recognition of error. In only a few passages, especially in Part Six, will one be able to tell from the tone of the book that it comes out of this struggle. For these I ask the indulgence of my reader, since they contain explanations the extent of which probably does not correspond either to the difficulty of the questions treated or to their influence. But in such passages the extent of treatment could not - as was otherwise the case - be made to depend solely on a judgment as to the value and significance of the investigations presented. There considerations of defense, more than concern for symmetry, had to determine the structure.

The eighteenth century has been seen as a Golden Age of design and craftsmanship. This book goes well beyond these ideas and investigates the various developments in the infrastructure of the eighteenth-century furniture world.