April/1998
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SLEEP J. Paul Caldwell, MD (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1995, 269 pp., $17.95)
Reviewed by Lynne Lamberg
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This book comes with the imprimatur of the Canadian Medical Association; it is one of a CMA series of books for the general public. Caldwell, a family physician practicing in Cobourg, Ontario, thanks a number of prominent Canadian sleep specialists for providing him with information, although he cites none of them the text.
The book provides a general overview of sleep and sleep disorders, with chapters on sleep stages and timing; sleep deprivation, snoring and sleep apnea; insomnia; things that go bump in the night; narcolepsy, movement disorders, sleep in children, sleep in seniors, the science of dreaming, drugs and sleep, all familiar ground.
The writing is conversational and easy to read. Some of it displays a nice sensitivity: insomnia in people hit by personal tragedy, seen through the prism of a small town doctor, for example. The book would be stronger, however, if the reader were not required to accept Caldwell as "the expert." One also wonders why a Canadian book refers to the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Commission on
Sleep Disorders Research without noting their US location. The bibliography contains only four references.
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