Can medical ethics be legislated? Can a complex bioethical question be definitively answered through legislation? In July 1987 the New York State legislature experimented with legislating medical ethics by amending the state's public health law to regulate Do Not Resuscitate' orders. The consequent law was complex and remains controversial. This volume reviews both the background bioethical debates and the elements of the public policy making process that are essential to understanding New York's experience with the DNR law. It features debates between leading exponents and critics of the law; case studies that examine the impact of New York's DNR law on clinicians, hospitals and patients; and a review of all empirical studies of the law by their lead authors. Appended to the volume is the New York State DNR law and a comprehensive set of background documents. The co-editors, Robert Baker and Martin A. Strosberg, are both professors at Union College, Schenectady, New York. They have collaborated on many projects including, Rationing America's Medical Care: The Oregon Plan and Beyond (Brookings, 1992).

Like many novel ideas, the idea for this volume and its predecessor arose over lunch in the cafeteria of the old Wellcome Institute. On an atternoon in Sept- ber 1988, Dorothy and Roy Porter, and I, sketched out a plan for a set of conf- ences in which scholars from a variety of disciplines would explore the emergence of modern medical ethics in the English-speaking world: from its pre-history in the quarrels that arose as gentlemanly codes of etiquette and honor broke down under the pressure of the eighteenth-century "sick trade," to the Enlightenment ethics of John Gregory and Thomas Percival, to the American appropriation process that culminated in the American Medical Association's 1847 Code of Ethics, and to the British turn to medical jurisprudence in the 1858 Medical Act. Roy Porter formally presented our idea as a plan for two back-to-back c- ferences to the Wellcome Trust, and I presented it to the editors of the PHI- LOSOPHY AND MEDICINE series, H. Tristram Engeihardt, Jr. and Stuart Spicker. The reception from both parties was enthusiastic and so, with the financial backing of the former and a commitment to publication from the latter, Roy Porter, ably assisted by Frieda Hauser and Steven Emberton, - ganized two conferences. The first was held at the Wellcome Institute in - cember 1989; the second was sponsored by the Wellcome, but was actually held in the National Hospital, in December 1990.

The editors have incurred many debts in preparing this book, and both etiquette and ethics would be contravened if they were not discharged here. Above all, we wish to thank the contributors for so cheerfully complying with our suggestions for preparing their papers for publication and efficiently meeting our schedules. It is thanks to their cooperation that this volume has appeared speedily and painlessly; their revisions have helped to give it internal coherence. This volume has emerged from papers delivered at a conference on the History of Medical Ethics, held at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London, 1 December, 1989. We are most grateful to the Wellcome Trust for having underwritten the costs of the conference, and to Frieda Houser and Stephen Emberton whose organizational skills contributed so much to making it a smoothly-run and enjoyable day. In addition to the papers delivered at the conference, we are delighted to have secured further contributions from David Harley and Johanna Geyer-Kordesch. Our thanks to them for their eager help. From start to finish, we have received splendid encouragement from all those connected with the Philosophy and Medicine series, especially Professor Stuart Spicker, and Martin Scrivener at Kluwer Academic Publishers. Their enthusiasm has lightened our load, and expedited the editorial process.

The editors have incurred many debts in preparing this book, and both etiquette and ethics would be contravened if they were not discharged here. Above all, we wish to thank the contributors for so cheerfully complying with our suggestions for preparing their papers for publication and efficiently meeting our schedules. It is thanks to their cooperation that this volume has appeared speedily and painlessly; their revisions have helped to give it internal coherence. This volume has emerged from papers delivered at a conference on the History of Medical Ethics, held at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London, 1 December, 1989. We are most grateful to the Wellcome Trust for having underwritten the costs of the conference, and to Frieda Houser and Stephen Emberton whose organizational skills contributed so much to making it a smoothly-run and enjoyable day. In addition to the papers delivered at the conference, we are delighted to have secured further contributions from David Harley and Johanna Geyer-Kordesch. Our thanks to them for their eager help. From start to finish, we have received splendid encouragement from all those connected with the Philosophy and Medicine series, especially Professor Stuart Spicker, and Martin Scrivener at Kluwer Academic Publishers. Their enthusiasm has lightened our load, and expedited the editorial process.

Can medical ethics be legislated? Can a complex bioethical question be definitively answered through legislation? In July 1987 the New York State legislature experimented with legislating medical ethics by amending the state's public health law to regulate Do Not Resuscitate' orders. The consequent law was complex and remains controversial. This volume reviews both the background bioethical debates and the elements of the public policy making process that are essential to understanding New York's experience with the DNR law. It features debates between leading exponents and critics of the law; case studies that examine the impact of New York's DNR law on clinicians, hospitals and patients; and a review of all empirical studies of the law by their lead authors. Appended to the volume is the New York State DNR law and a comprehensive set of background documents. The co-editors, Robert Baker and Martin A. Strosberg, are both professors at Union College, Schenectady, New York. They have collaborated on many projects including, Rationing America's Medical Care: The Oregon Plan and Beyond (Brookings, 1992).

Like many novel ideas, the idea for this volume and its predecessor arose over lunch in the cafeteria of the old Wellcome Institute. On an atternoon in Sept- ber 1988, Dorothy and Roy Porter, and I, sketched out a plan for a set of conf- ences in which scholars from a variety of disciplines would explore the emergence of modern medical ethics in the English-speaking world: from its pre-history in the quarrels that arose as gentlemanly codes of etiquette and honor broke down under the pressure of the eighteenth-century "sick trade," to the Enlightenment ethics of John Gregory and Thomas Percival, to the American appropriation process that culminated in the American Medical Association's 1847 Code of Ethics, and to the British turn to medical jurisprudence in the 1858 Medical Act. Roy Porter formally presented our idea as a plan for two back-to-back c- ferences to the Wellcome Trust, and I presented it to the editors of the PHI- LOSOPHY AND MEDICINE series, H. Tristram Engeihardt, Jr. and Stuart Spicker. The reception from both parties was enthusiastic and so, with the financial backing of the former and a commitment to publication from the latter, Roy Porter, ably assisted by Frieda Hauser and Steven Emberton, - ganized two conferences. The first was held at the Wellcome Institute in - cember 1989; the second was sponsored by the Wellcome, but was actually held in the National Hospital, in December 1990.