Human parasitic disease continues to pose a serious problem worldwide, especially in developing countries. Not only are the poorest countries of the world disproportionately affected, but the burden of human parasitic disease in those countries prevents their social and economic development. The lack of infrastructure, rudimentary sanitation and inadequate healthcare facilities favours the uncontrolled spread of disease, including parasitic disease. Thus, poverty and human parasitic disease go hand in hand, and are locked in a cycle which perpetuates and exacerbates the problem.

The intricacies of parasitism and the elegance of parasite–host interactions have attracted scientific attention for more than 100 years. Despite the plethora of excellent parasitology research performed worldwide, there is still a paucity of relevant clinical expertize, especially in endemic areas where the need is greatest. Thus, I applaud the authors of ‘Human Parasitology’ for their aim of producing a textbook which combines clinical parasitology with some parasite biology; to inform medical and biological education with the wealth of knowledge available from many years of parasitology research.

However, the reality failed to meet my expectations. The authors have produced a textbook with an impressively wide breadth, attempting to cover the Protozoa, trematodes, cestodes, nematodes and arthropods. And this breadth has perhaps been their undoing: it is nigh impossible to do each parasite justice in the space of 16 relatively short chapters. Admittedly, there are some aspects which I felt were well done: there are many beautiful micrographs and clear line drawings which illustrated the complexities of the parasites themselves and their sophisticated life-cycles. The labelling of the diagrams was less consistent and could be confusing, especially to a non-expert. For instance, the line drawing of the trophozoite of Giardia lamblia would have benefited from a more thorough annotation, designating the various pairs of flagella. On occasions, the terminology used was not consistent: the tsetse stage of Trypanosoma brucei was referred to in the text as procyclic (the term used most commonly in T. brucei research) but as trypomastigotes in the diagrams. I dread to imagine the confusion this kind of inconsistency would provoke in undergraduate students.

Despite the flaws in the delivery of the basic parasitology, it was relatively well done, albeit at a superficial level. The main failing of this book was in the medical aspects of parasitology. I acknowledge that medicine is a constantly evolving discipline and that textbooks outlining medical practice are inevitably out-of-date before they hit the shelves, but the information in this book pertaining to chemotherapy of parasitic disease was woefully obsolete. There was little mention of the novel chemotherapies which were in the pipeline (if not on the market) whilst this book was in preparation: for example miltefosine for leishmaniases (registered for use 2002) or artemisinin derivatives for malaria (first derivatives registered for use in 1997). The map illustrating the regional recommendations for malarial prophylaxis (from the WHO) is dated 1997, whereas the map demonstrating the global distribution of malaria is dated 2003. If the authors had the ability to modify the manuscript up until 2003, I cannot understand why they did not update the malarial prophylaxis figure. Providing information which is 8 years out of date is completely worthless. The authors have made some attempt to include more recent developments, by their inclusion in the appendices at the rear of the text book, but these sections lack detail and do not correspond to the sections on chemotherapy included in each chapter.

In short, despite the authors' claim that they intended this book for “premedical, medical technology and biology students”, I cannot identify the target audience for this book. In my opinion, it is not detailed enough to convey the full complexity and elegance of human parasitehost interactions for biology students. Nor does it provide a useful almanac for teaching pre-medical students or for use in the field by laboratory technicians, because it is so out of date. I fear the authors' wide-ranging remit has been their downfall: by attempting to cater for all audiences, they end up satisfying none.