How to Find Health Information on the Internet

There are those who complain that the Internet is pernicious waste of time whereby you surf, you cruise, you fritter away valuable portions of your life in futile Net searches, but Bruce Maxwell's guide to health information on the Internet actually adds to the quality (and possibly the duration) of your life, providing easy access to 600 of the most useful health Web sites currently available, from a site devoted to Aarskog Syndrome to the Y-Me National Breast Cancer Organization. Along with information on medical directories and search engines, doctors and hospitals, general health resources and medical libraries, there are Web sites and email addresses for health conditions, diseases, and illnesses from AIDS to substance abuse, URLs on various prevention and treatment topics such as travel, fitness, and alternative medicines, and on health-care issues like health insurance, smoking, and dying. When it's 3 a.m. and you can't sleep and you want to know right away what the deal is with that dull pain in your gut, or any other time when you need reliable medical information in a timely fashion, Maxwell's guide is a great boon. --Stephanie Gold