The purpose of this book is to clarify the use of antibiotics in the management of the eommon respiratory illnesses seen in general practiee. The underlying philosophy, whieh embraees the avoidanee of unneeessary use, is that proper use entails a full understanding of the nature of the illness. The eoneept of seleetive antibiotie use reeognizes that respiratory illnesses eommonly eomprise multiple illness features, and that some of these features have a viral cause and some a bacterial one. In assessing antibiotic need, eaeh feature or eomponent part of an illness may be evaluated individually, so enabling adecision for antibiotie use in the illness as a whole. The nature of eaeh individual illness feature with its antibiotic indication is diseussed in sueeessive ehapters, and this aecumulated knowledge is of value in managing the more eomplex PUO and flu-like illnesses whieh are diseussed at the end of the book. The first two ehapters eneompass the principles of antibiotic use and the relationship between antibiotie preseribing and various states of the patient, e.g. allergy, pregnaney ete.
An attempt has been made to justify every reeommendation or decision, and non-antibiotic management is diseussed where relevant.