This compilation of articles, research studies and case material deals with the multi-faceted dimensions of hospital law. The volume brings together international experts' views on the interface between medicine, law and ethics as they relate to hospital policy and procedures. Topics explored include: ethics committees, informed consent, malpractice, medical experts and the courts, medical records, use of computers, DNR, death, organ transplants and bio-medical technology.

G. di Gennaro Abuse of drugs has reached such magnitude that it is regarded by most govern ments, scholars, and experts as one of the major problems of present-day society. The highest values of individuals and social groups are strongly attacked or are at risk as a result of the spread of drug abuse. As a consequence, society is deprived of the contribution of many of its members toward the establishment of better condi tions of life. On the other hand, considerable portions of the limited resources of so ciety are diverted to assist, cure, and rehabilitate drug addicts. The enormous gains derived from illicit traffic in drugs are contributing tremendously to the strengthen ing of criminal organizations and the rise of new aggressive criminal syndicates. The financial means of these groups are invested in illegal enterprises which extend the criminals' power to various sectors of the economy. One should recognize that the vast criminal network which is behind this crimi nal big business has achieved such strength that it acts as a counter-power. Corrup tion, racketeering, oppression, and illicit influences are among the dreadful ele ments which unavoidably accompany drug trafficking. The price paid for this by humanity is incommensurate."

The prostitution of the German psychiatric profession into a Nazi inquisitional tool was a major factor producing the total degradation of German medicine and moral ity. Its low point was its psychiatrists killing the patients they were sworn to care for, and its other physicians performing inhuman experiments on patients they were pledged to treat. In America also, psychiatry has been performing some of the functions of an In quisition: injuring innocents, both patients and dissenters, and exculpating crimi nals, terrorists especially. Innocents are being injured both in and out of psychiatric hospitals. The in creased fragmentation of care, the augmentation of its discontinuities, and assign ing the responsibility for organizing it to non-medical managers are some of the fac tors worsening the treatment results of our hospitals. Wrongful deaths, due largely to the specialty's intoxication with drugs while ignoring the importance of common human decency, have become a national scandal."

The papers in this section on the legal aspects of nursing can be divided into two parts: (a) the rights and responsibilities of nurses, patients, and the medical system and (b) treatment, with its legal ramifications. How does one decide whether patients' rights or the health professional's rights are to be considered more seriously? Is there an absolute "right" or "wrong"? Since legal rights are sanctioned by constantly changing social and political climates, this may, in effect, diminish the possibility of anything absolute. The question of the "equivalency" of legal and moral rights is also addressed. Due to the prevalent vagueness with regard to bioethical issues as they affect hu man and legal rights, often we become absorbed in philosophical polemics without being able to arrive at anyone answer. In order to move beyond the ethical/theoret ical fonnulations, there is daily confrontation in the nursing profession -the practi cal application of theoretics."