The contributors to "Translation and Medicine" address several broad aspects of medical translation, from the cultural/historic framework of the language of medicine to pragmatic considerations of register and terminology. Their articles highlight some of the contributions translation has made to medical science and addresses some of the questions raised by those who escort the advances of medicine across language and cultural barriers and those who train the next generation of medical translators.Section 1 covers some Historical and Cultural Aspects that have characterized the language of medicine in Japan and Western Europe, with special emphasis on French and Spanish; Section 2 opens some vistas on The Medical Translator in Training with two specific university-level programs in Switzerland and in Spain, as well as an in-depth analysis of who makes the better medical translator: the medically knowledgeable linguist or the linguistically knowledgeable medical professional; and Section 3 looks at several facets of The Translator at Work, with discussions of the translator-client relationship and the art of audience-specific translating, an insider s view of the Translation Unit of the National Institutes of Health, and a detailed study of online medical terminology resources.

Designed to appeal to students who want a short but up-to-date overview, researchers who are interested in a critical appraisal, and consumers who would like to know what leaders in the field think, this collection of articles highlights the changes that have occurred in readability research from the past to the present and makes predictions about the future. The articles and their authors are as follows: (1) "The Beginning Years" (Jeanne S. Chall); (2) "The Formative Years" (George R. Klare); (3) "Assigning Grade Levels without Formulas: Some Case Studies" (Alice Davison); (4) "Determining Difficulty Levels of Text Written in Languages Other than English" (Annette T. Rabin); and (5) "Writeability: The Principles of Writing for Increased Comprehension" (Edward B. Fry); (6) "New Ways of Assessing Text Difficulty" (Marilyn R. Binkley); and (7) "Toward a New Approach to Predicting Text Comprehensibility," (Beverly L. Zakaluk and L. Jay Samuels). (NH)