The idea for compiling a book on coccidioidomycosis first began to take shape in my mind in 1976 at an annual meeting of the Coccidioidomycosis Study Group (see Chapter 23) in Palo Alto. In my discussions with the chairman, Demosthenes Pappagianis, we agreed that considerable data had accumulated in the almost 20 years since the publication of Marshall Fiese's landmark book, Coccidioidomycosis (Charles C Thomas, Spring field, Ill. , 1958). Pappagianis encouraged me to consider writing a new book. Also about this time, my Stanford colleague Tom Merigan was collaborating in assembling a series of texts on infectious diseases, and he added his encouragement to that of Pappagianis. I planned to enlist the collaboration of my colleagues for the multiauthored work I had conceived to encompass the various facets of coccidioidomycosis. The more I worked, the more I appreciated the effort that had gone into the Fiese book. I hope the final product is a useful, readable, and comprehensive text and reference source for this disease and a worthy successor to the Fiese book. This volume places greater emphasis on the basic science background of present clinical experience and attempts to examine critically the data base and how it fits with recommendations made in the clinical literature. In some of the contributed chapters, I made virtually no changes; in others, I battered them to fit my preconceptions.
