Mayo Clinic Family Health Book: The Ultimate Guide to Health

Health & Anatomy

Obviously the name Mayo Clinic, attached to any health title, adds a measure of prestige and the expectation of a definitive work. Well, a name isn’t everything. Mayo Clinic Family Health Book: The Ultimate Guide to Health (IVI Publishing) is surprisingly light on content. Topics like anatomy or cancer are gently and clearly presented, but with very basic information. This is fine for kids, but adults might want more depth. A good example is the Medicine Cabinet. This is the place to look up medications – you find percodan and prozac, but no percoset. Since this is primarily a text-based program, why not have a huge, and useful, pharmaceutical database? All the standard tools and elements that you expect in a reference title are here – search, history, hypertext, and print – plus video, slides, animation, and audio. The design and functionality are commendable, but the bottom line is that, as a “Family” health guide, you’ll want more depth than you get with this program.

– June 1995