Book Recommendation: Atlas of Common Skin Diseases

Atlas of Common Skin Diseases (3rd ed.) is an illustrated popular-science monograph on dermatology edited by Yu Ruiyuan, Wang Jiabidu, Qi Jun, and others. The book has now reached a fourth edition, renamed Color Atlas of Skin Diseases, still edited by Yu Ruiyuan, Qi Jun, and colleagues.

If possible, I suggest students of TCM external surgery buy and keep both the third and fourth editions. Although the fourth edition adds much new knowledge, I personally prefer the third edition’s practice of listing the corresponding TCM disease names for each condition. The third edition can be read free in the WeChat Read app; I discovered the third edition there, then bought the fourth.

If readers have experience reading ancient TCM external-surgery texts, reading this book will review much old knowledge, deepen understanding of half-understood points learned before, and also teach much new knowledge.

Because I do not work in dermatology and have no opportunity for clinical observation, when reading TCM external-surgery works I encountered many disease names (e.g., lugouchuan, shangongtou, liuhuo, dajiaofeng) with no mental picture. But after flipping through Atlas of Common Skin Diseases, I not only gained an intuitive impression of these diseases but also understood their causes and learned their modern treatments. Comparing these modern treatments with traditional formulas gives us a deeper understanding of how Chinese herbal formulas work.

Of course, this book is only a brief introduction to skin diseases. To truly study dermatology and venereology in depth, one must read more substantial works like Clinical Dermatology of China, Andrew’s Diseases of the Skin, and Zhu Desheng’s Dermatology. But if you only want to learn some basic dermatology, Atlas of Common Skin Diseases suffices.

This book is also suitable for general readers. Skin diseases and venereal diseases are both common and easily recognized; Atlas of Common Skin Diseases not only includes photos of each skin and venereal disease but also gives treatment plans.

Many skin and venereal diseases are infectious. Reading this book lets us see the harm of such diseases and learn care methods for common skin conditions and knowledge about contagious skin and venereal diseases, raising our awareness of personal hygiene and our ability to prevent diseases spread through skin and sexual contact. A good life requires a healthy body. General readers—especially those with many sexual partners—will also benefit by reading this as a preventive-medicine popular-science work on skin and venereal diseases.