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edited by Robert B. Baker, Arthur L. Caplan, Linda L. Emanuel, and Stephen R. Latham, 396 pp, $59.95, ISBN 0-8018-6170-5, Baltimore, Md, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.

JAMA. 2000;284:2526.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

In 1847, the newly organized American Medical Association (AMA) adopted its first code of medical ethics. This code was transformed in the early part of the 20th century into a series of principles of medical ethics, the most recent version of which was adopted in 1980. Together with a 1990 statement on the patient-physician relation and a series of opinions of the AMA's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, these principles (and the 150-year history of efforts underlying them) represent one of the most notable examples of a profession's attempt to regulate itself by self-imposed ethical standards. This effort deserves serious attention, and the book under review is an important contribution.

Its greatest strength is its careful analysis of the early efforts leading up to the 1847 code. Burns and Baker establish that the 1847 code was revolutionary in two ways: while drawing upon the Scottish ethics of gentlemanly virtues, . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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