The issues discussed in this work of 20 authors are all quite pertinent. The book opens with an historical-philosophical account, gracefully compressed into 20 pages by Iago Galdston, beginning with the Hippocratic overthrow of ancient medicine down to what should be our concern currently with holistic-ecological medicine. The chapters following contain discussions of the ethical aspects of contraception, artificial insemination, abortion, sterilization, death, what the physician tells the patient, professional secrecy, human experimentation, the drug industry, transplantation, certain psychiatric problems (particularly the adversary posture of the physician), physician strikes, war, and poverty. The future and solutions are considered in the two concluding chapters by the editor, E. Fuller Torrey, MD.
The physician is confronted increasingly with ethical and moral decisions that arise mainly out of rapid technological advances and the burgeoning of information. As examples, organ transplantation, the differential death of tissues, and the nurture of longevity have been preserving