Thomas Moshang, Missouri: Elsevier Mosby, 2004, £34.99 (hardback), pp 282. ISBN 0323018254 Studying paediatric endocrinology is like staring into the waters of Loch Ness. In the cold light of a Scottish day it is possible to see a few inches into the murky depths, and while most visitors are comfortable seeing the loch’s surface, to consider plumbing the dark waters gives one an eerie feeling about what could lie beneath (encouraged by the locals). Like the mythical monster, the rarer syndromes are often the subject of fragmented fables, discussed using apocryphal stories (in darkened rooms using faded slides), yet to catch them in the wild needs both an inquisitive mind, an awareness of what one could be hunting for, …