Part 1 Medico-legal aspects of medicine: the courts and medical reports; the General Medical Council; medical negligence; complaints in the National Health Service; ethical problems; the young, the disabled and the old; conception, birth and death; death certification and the coroner. Part 2 Forensic medicine and toxicology: identification and medico-legal examination; physical injury and its consequences; sexual offences, abortion; asphyxia and drowning; injury from physical agents; the medico-legal aspects of childhood; toxicology. Appendices: careers in legal medicine; medical certificate of cause of death; deaths to be reported to the coroner; some of the categories of death which may be of industrial origin; recommended reading.