Blood Cells: A Practical Guide 5th Edition

Book Preface

Blood Cells has been written with both the practising haematologist and the trainee in mind. My aim has been to provide a guide for use in the diagnostic haematology laboratory, covering methods of collection of blood specimens, blood film preparation and staining, the principles of manual and automated blood counts and the assessment of the morphological features of blood cells. My objective has been that the practising haematologist should find this book sufficiently comprehensive to be a reference source while, at the same time, the trainee haematologist and biomedical scientist should find it a straightforward and practical bench manual. I hope that the medically trained haematologist will gain a fuller understanding of the scientific basis of an important segment of laboratory haematology, while the laboratory scientist will understand more of the purpose and clinical relevance of laboratory tests. I trust it is not too ambitious to hope to be ‘all things to all men’. This edition has been expanded to keep it as comprehensive and up-to-date as possible and includes more guidance on the further tests that should be performed for any given provisional diagnosis. However, microscopy and the automated full blood count remain the core of the book. My overriding purpose has been to show that microscopy not only provides the essential basis of our haematological practice, but can also lead to the excitement of discovery.

The decline in the number of blood films made and the increasingly heavy clinical commitments of any haematologist who is not purely a laboratory haematologist make this book more than ever necessary. I thought that the fourth edition, published eight years ago, would be the last, but it seemed a pity to stop when there are still new things to be learnt about the circulating blood cells. If I succeed in sending the reader back to the microscope with renewed interest and enthusiasm I shall be well satisfied.
B.J.B. 2015