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Previous Volume 344:1244-1246 April 19, 2001 Number 16 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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If one subject in health law and bioethics can be said to be at once well settled and persistently unresolved, it is how to determine that death has occurred. Once this determination involved simply the measurement of vital signs. It was as often performed by laypersons as by physicians. Now it is often a complex matter requiring specialized expertise and raising both conceptual and practical difficulties.

In the majority of cases, death is diagnosed on the basis of the irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions. But beginning in the middle of the 20th century, increasingly sophisticated means were developed . . . [Full Text of this Article]

References

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