Attorneys and physicians dealing with medicolegal issues frequently are confronted by the question of which medical textbooks a physician is likely to recognize as “authoritative” so that the text may be used in direct or cross-examination. Consequently, doctors and lawyers must have more than a passing familiarity with these texts for pretrial research and preparation for courtroom testimony.

The following list has been prepared as a guide for this purpose. This list itemizes by medical subject the standard textbooks in each field. Where more than one book is listed under a given specialty, the books are listed in rough order of the author's preference.

Those books preceded by the letter “A” are contained in “Recommended Textbooks and Journals for a “Core Medical Library” in 280 New England Journal of Medicine 475-8 (Feb. 27, 1969).

Over 250 psychiatrists, lawyers and health professionals heard seven distinguished speakers present and defend their views concerning the proper role of psychiatrists in the courtroom and of lawyers in the fieid of mental health at the 1974 Isaac Ray Symposium held at Butler Hospital, Providence, Rhode Island earlier this year.

Dr. Jacques Quen of Cornell University Medical College reviewed the remarkable 19th century contributions of Isaac Ray. He concluded that Ray would have supported the Birnbaum and Wyatt v. Stickney expositions of the right to treatment, (although probably not Wyatt's explicit numerical requirements), but would have objected to the great power which judges possess to release involuntarily committed patients in habeas corpus actions.