Manohar M. Panjabi and Augustus A. White III. New
York: Churchill Livingstone; 2001. 224 pages. $59.00.
This basic text, presented in nine chapters, is directed toward
anyone wishing to become familiar with the concepts underlying musculoskeletal
biomechanics.
The book starts with "The Basics," which includes simple
vector analysis and an introduction to weights and measures. The
chapters that follow describe basic concepts of motion, motion in response
to load, and loads on rigid bodies. These topics, called statics
and dynamics in common engineering terms, are discussed with a minimum of
mathematics. Anatomic examples are used, and the material is easy
to follow.
Chapters 5 and 6 deal with the response of materials and structures
to loads, and again, a minimum of mathematics and the use of anatomic
examples ease the reading burden. Some of the diagrams and presentations
have been simplified to the point of loss of accuracy, but this
does not detract too much from the neophyte’s learning
process. Chapter 7, on vibrations, presents material that is unusual
and rarely included in a biomechanics text. That it is minimally
relevant to orthopaedic biomechanics is consistent with the lack
of biological examples. The chapter on material properties is somewhat superficial,
even for a beginning text; it is little more than an extended list
of numbers.
The strength of this text is its simple and direct approach to
the concepts underlying musculoskeletal biomechanics. The text does
not, however, delve into biomechanics on an operational level, so
the reader will not learn how to solve biomechanical problems either
by example or by methodological instruction. Thus, this book is
ideally suited as an introductory text for an orthopaedic resident
who has no background in physics or engineering and wishes to learn
the language of orthopaedic biomechanics.