Medical ethics in Imperial Germany were deeply entangled in professional, legal and social issues. This book shows how doctors' ethical decision-making during the Kaiserreich was guided by their notions of male honour and professional reputation and by considerations of professional politics rather than by concern for patients' interests. It illustrates how medical men adhered to a paternalistic conception of the doctor-patient relationship, despite experiencing pressures from lawyers and patients to recognize a right of the sick individual to self-determination. Initiatives like that of the Berlin psychiatrist Albert Moll, who in 1902 published a detailed account of how medical ethics could be built upon a contract relationship between doctor and patient, remained exceptional.

Introduction
Disciplinig Doctors: The Medical Courts of Honour
The Limits of Medical Confidentiality
Patient Information and Consent: Self-Determination versus Benevolent Paternalism
The Literature on Medical Ethics and Conduct
Conclusions
Bibliography

ANDREAS-HOLGER MAEHLE is Professor of History of Medicine and Medical Ethics at Durham University, UK, where he directs the Centre for the History of Medicine and Disease. He has published widely on the history of medicine, including Drugs on Trial: Experimental Pharmacology and Therapeutic Innovation in the Eighteenth Century (Rodopi 1999) and, as editor, Historical and Philosophical Perspectives on Biomedical Ethics: From Paternalism to Autonomy? (Ashgate 2002).