Today every medical specialty deals more and more with diseases that are rare, intrinsic, and complex. And yet while medical fragmentation seems, because of esoteric concern, to be constantly growing, the separation becomes less. A feeling of oneness of biological problems is in the air. A common approach is developing; a common language is arising. The language is that of genetics, the science that explains diversity by proclaiming unity.
The book being reviewed can be considered an attempt to demonstrate how genetics interrelates by weaving patterns of affinity among disparate phenomena. Still, even genetics could not make this book more than it is: a number of separately authored chapters varying in thoroughness and level of presentation—some semipopular, others more abstruse—with little to tie them together beyond their all ostensibly dealing with "birth defects."
If you are of a mind to accept the widest definition of the term, you will commend