The purpose of this book is to help the reader to interpret what they find when taking the history and examining a patient. The history and examination represents the early assessment of the patient. This book enables the less experienced doctor to arrive at a daignosis via the actual symptoms and signs presenting in the patient. By taking a symptoms-led approach it leads the doctor to a diagnosis, the management of which could be looked up in the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine. Other medical books do not have such an approach, that is they assume that the diagnosis has already been made, and then advise on management. For the less experienced doctor, it is the arriving at the diagnosis that can be very difficult.