Monto Ho, MD, has written a comprehensive monograph on cytomegalovirus (CMV) that encompasses the basic as well as the clinical science aspects of this interesting and sometimes mysterious herpesvirus. Although the author modestly apologizes for the articles that he has not cited, he has produced a remarkably complete book.
It has been over a decade since there has been this kind of updating on CMV. The last monograph, published by Krech et al in 1971, was less broad in scope than the present work. This is not surprising, however, in view of the exponential increase in the number of published articles in this field in the past decade.
The important question of transmission of CMV in the nursery is considered in the section on epidemiology. A report by Gurevich and Cunha (Lancet 1981;2:223-224) is cited as an example of transmission of severe disease from one fatally infected infant to four