THE MAN WHO GREW TWO BREASTS AND...

THE MAN WHO GREW TWO BREASTS AND OTHER TRUE TALES OF MEDICAL DETECTION by Berton Roueche (Plume/Penguin: $10.95, 197 pp.). Roueche’s accounts of medical mysteries were a popular feature of the New Yorker for many years. In this anthology he chronicles 10 examples of patients whose puzzling symptoms reflect an old dictum about rare diseases: “When you hear hoofbeats, you don’t necessarily think of a zebra.” A small child’s bizarre array of illnesses was the product of his mother’s disturbed psyche; a case of bubonic plague in Denver was linked to the carcass of a squirrel. Roueche’s prose is a model of clear, unpretentious reportage.