A psychoanalyst, a professor of comparative literature, a social historian, and the director of the New York Civil Liberties Union analyze and criticize social-policy responses to the needs of such dependent individuals as the handicapped, children, and t.

Introduction: making the invisible visible -- The nobility of the material -- Research at war -- The guilded age of research -- The doctor as whistle-blower -- New rules for the laboratory -- Bedside ethics -- The doctor as stranger -- Life through death -- Commissioning ethics -- No one to trust -- New rules for the bedside -- Epilogue: The price of success.