ÿþ<HTML> <HEAD><TITLE>Encyclopedia review: Larousse m&#233;dical: Encyclop&#233;die multim&#233;dia</TITLE></HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#3299CC"> <P> <Font size="4"><B>Larousse m&#233;dical: Encyclop&#233;die multim&#233;dia </B></Font><BR> Reviewed by Fran&#231;oise Herrmann<BR> <BR> 2006 - Larousse <BR> ISBN 5371128077<BR> 49.90&#8364;<BR> </P> <P><HR WIDTH=300 Align=CENTER></P> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36"> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">The <I>Larousse m&#233;dical: Encyclop&#233;die multim&#233;dia </I> is a medical reference tool in CD-ROM format that regroups 6,000 articles, with 1,000 photos and charts, covering such topics as illnesses, diagnostic tests, surgery, medication, anatomy, and instrumentation. The first printed version of the <I>Larousse m&#233;dical </I> was published in 1912, with a mission both to capture the state of the art in medicine and supplement patient-doctor communication. The 2006 electronic version covers the contents of the 2006 printed edition, with the additional bonuses of computer mediation for simplified searching and immediate retrieval of information, dictionary functions, hypertext enabled cross-referencing and indexing, interactive media, and easy navigation. </p> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">The 2006 electronic version of the <I>Larousse m&#233;dical</I> also comes bundled with an additional application called <I>Votre sant&#233; au quotidien</i>. This software enables you to create an extensive interactive medical record for yourself and others (including alerts), and it also supplies some important first aid information and useful medical resources in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Quebec. Compiled by a large scientific committee, exclusively consisting of more than 150 medical experts in all areas of medicine, this tool supplies reliable information, which will be invaluable to you professionally, and perhaps also personally.</p> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">To use the <I>Larousse m&#233;dical</I> encyclopedia, and the bundled bonus application <I>Votre sant&#233; au quotidien</I>, you will need a PC equipped with Windows&#153; 98/2000/Me/XP or NT4.0, a Pentium III 500 Mhz processor, 64 MB of RAM, and a 4X CD-ROM drive. During installation via a regular installation Wizard, you may elect to install both the encyclopedia and <i>Votre Sant&#233; au quotidien</i>, or just one or the other. There are two installation options for the encyclopedia: minimal and recommended. The recommended option for installation uses at least 250 MB of space, and frees up your disk drive for use with other CDs. The minimal option for installation uses less memory (50 MB) and requires the use of the CD in your disk drive to search and retrieve information from the encyclopedia. There are no options for installing Votre santé au quotidien, which requires 200 MB of space.</p> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">Once installed, the <i>Larousse m&#233;dical </i>and <i>Votre sant&#233;</i> au quotidien</i>are both accessed via the Start menu, or when you click on corresponding taskbar icons. A succinct 15-page user guide is inserted in the CD-ROM packaging to guide you through the aforementioned installation process, and to point you to the main functions of both the encyclopedia and bundled software.</p> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">The <i>Larousse m&#233;dical</i>in electronic format provides you with several options for querying, retrieving, and navigating information, all of which vastly expand the possibilities of leafing through a printed edition. The first option is a search mode where you type in a search term. You may type your searches using Boolean operators and wildcards [*], and an interactive pop-up parser will query you in case of a spelling error. Results are returned hierarchically by order of significance in a clickable and scrollable list that pulls out right to left (see Figure 1). At the top of the hit list, there are articles where the headword matches your search term.[Delete paragraph break]For example, when you search for the term &#147;diab&#232;te&#148; [diabetes], the top hit corresponds to an article entitled &#147;Diab&#232te.&#148;. The next set of hits, termed &#147;Autres r&#233;sultats&#148;. [Other hits] corresponds to a list of related articles (cross-referenced articles), and/or a list of articles where your search term co-occurs with other terms as headwords. For example, for the same searched term &#147;diab&#232;te,&#148; the list of other articles indicates &#147;Diab&#232;te bronz&#232;&#148; [bronze diabetes] and &#147;Diab&#232;te sucr&#232;,&#148; [diabetes mellitus] among several. The third category of hits, termed &#147;Recherche &#232;largie&#148; [Expanded search] is a list of hits related to the search word in the internal tree structure of the encyclopedia. Thus, for a search on the term &#147;diab&#232;te,&#148; you will find, by extension, articles concerning such topics as &#147;corticotrophine&#148; [corticotrophin] and &#147;prolactine&#148; [prolactin] in addition to many others. The final category of hits returned is a list of all of the occurrences of your searched term anywhere in the encyclopedia. Electronic querying thus vastly augments your capacity to search and retrieve information from the encyclopedia.</p> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">The second search mode is termed thematic. In this mode you select a theme listed in a nested tree structure that appears on the left side of the screen. The nested thematic tree structure includes the broad headings of General, Anatomy, Physiology, Cellular and Molecular Biology, Pathology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Medical Specialties, and Paramedical and Alternative Medicine, each of which opens to more nested topics, including, for example, among hundreds, a list of instruments and diagnostic methods under the General theme, yoga and acupuncture under Alternative Medicine.</p> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">Once you have examined the list of hits returned for your search, or the list of topics in a theme, you then click on the article you want to peruse, which appears next to the list of hits or topics. The article you select also appears framed to the right with two tabs: one consisting of a list of related documents, including media; and another consisting of a linked &#147;Plan,&#A148; or summary, of the article currently displayed or in-use. Thus, you are able to further extend your focus with pictures or charts, and conversely you can zero-in on a particular section of a long article when you click on a summary link.</p> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">The hyperlinked contents of the <i> Larousse m&#233;dical</i> means that when you double click on cross-references (written in blue) within an article, this information will pop up in another window, ready for consultation. Hyperlinks also enable the <i>Larousse m&#233;dical</i> to function as a monolingual dictionary. That is, every time you double-click (or right click) on a word in an article, the corresponding definition will pop up in another window, including the corresponding article and related hits.</p> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">Navigation of the <i>Larousse m&#233;dical</i> is facilitated with forward and backward arrow buttons at the top right hand corner of the screen, which enable you to retrace your search steps. These steps are also accessible and listed in the History menu. It is also possible to bookmark articles of interest for storage and subsequent access, using the bookmarking menu or a right click.</p> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">For French-speaking translators this is an excellent medical reference tool. First, because the information it contains is deemed reliable. A scientific committee, exclusively consisting of medical doctors specializing in the various fields of medicine, was commissioned to write the articles. Second, new editions of the <i> Larousse m&#233;dical </i>also appear updated every year, which is an indication that the encyclopedia is striving to keep up with the fast pace of innovations in the fields of medicine. Third, because the articles are written for an audience of patients, in contrast to an audience of professional peers in the field of medicine, which means that they are well within the grasp of translators without a medical background. And finally, because the articles display a systematic internal organization that conveys clarity and ease of reading. For example, articles related to illnesses are consistently divided into sections, such as causes or contamination, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment, complications and prevention, which appear in red bold face or as links in the summary tab of the each article. Similarly, all the encyclopedic content of articles is preceded with a succinct definition and synonyms section, which provides the dictionary content of the encyclopedia.</p> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">A final word about the encyclopedia must be said regarding the graphics. The 1,000 multimedia documents included in the <i>Larousse m&#233;dical </i>consist of photos, X-rays, scans, and diagrams, all of which serve to further clarify and explain the contents of articles. Keyed diagrams also include an interesting &#147;T&#148; function, appearing as a small icon button, which enables you to show, or hide, the text keyed to the diagram or drawing.</p> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">However, there is still much more that comes bundled with the <i>Larousse m&#233;dical</i> encyclopedia. The application <i>Votre sant&#233; au quotidien </i>is designed for multiple interactive medical record keeping, including password protected records, scheduling of medical appointments with alerts, and the display of information in tables and charts (see for example a teeth chart in Figure 2).</p> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36"> <i>Votre Sant&#233; au quotidien</i> also contains four additional illustrated information modules related to first aid and medical resources. The first is a list of symptoms (e.g., weight loss, difficulty swallowing for adults; convulsions, earache for children). The second is an illustrated list of various types of pain (e.g., appendicitis, migraine, sciatica). The third is an illustrated list of first aid directions (e.g., bandages, burns, mouth to mouth resuscitation). And the fourth is a list of medical resources in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Quebec (e.g., emergency services, associations for burn victims, cancer patients, autism, diabetes), including an Internet link for a list of updated telephone numbers and links to the resource websites.</p> <P><SPACER TYPE="horizontal" SIZE="36">The <i>Larousse m&#233;dical 2006</i> on CD-ROM is a <i>superb</i>, and bargain, medical reference tool for translators of French. If you are unsure of the difference between LDL and HDL cholesterol, or if you are unclear about the critical differences between HIV+ and AIDS, you will find remarkably concise and clear answers in the <i>Larousse m&#233;dical</i>. This reference tool is a popular one, in which every effort has been deployed to ensure that the information contained is both reliable and updated. It is also easy to navigate, search, and retrieve the information subsumed. Bundled with the interactive record keeping and medical resource tool <i>Votre sant&#233; au quotidien</i>, the <i>Larousse m&#233;dical</i> reference tool is a real deal &#151;it costs <i>less</i> than the hardcopy version alone of the encyclopedia, <i>and</i> it is an absolute pleasure to consult and use. Get it! You will find it most useful.</p> <P><HR WIDTH=300 Align=CENTER></P> <p><FONT SIZE="2"><b>Figure 1:</b><i> Larousse m&#233;dical</i> encyclopedia: search for the term diab&#232;te [diabetes]<FONT></p> <IMG HEIGHT=768 WIDTH=1024 SRC="Diabetes.jpg" > </A> <BR> <p><FONT SIZE="2"><b>Figure 2:</B> Votre santé au quotidien: dental record (chart format).]<FONT></p> <IMG HEIGHT=571 WIDTH=794 SRC="Teeth.jpg" > </A> <BR> <P><B><A HREF="Publications.html">Publications</A></B></P> <P><B><A HREF="Bookrev.html">Reviews</A></B></P> <P><B><A HREF="index.html">Home</A></B></P> </BODY> </HTML>