Book reviews

William C. Green and Theodore Karasik (Eds.), Gorbachev and his Generals: The Reform of Soviet Military Doctrine (Westview Press, 1990, 239pp. ISBN 0–8133–7898–2)

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, On the Law of Nations (Harvard University Press, 1990)

Peter J. Stavrakis, Moscow and Greek Communism, 1944–1949. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London. 1989. ISBN 0–8014–2125–X.

Scalpino, R.A., The Politics of Development: Perspectives on Twentieth‐Century Asia (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1989, pp.131)

Sean M. Lynn‐Jones, Steven E. Miller and Stephen van Evera (Eds.), Soviet Military Policy (MIT Press, 1989. £26.95 [cloth]; £13.50 [paperback]).     

Custody decisions in Alabama before and after the abolition of the tender years doctrine

This study investigated the impact of the abolition of the tender years doctrine on custody decisions in divorce cases. This doctrine supported the presumption that the mother is the more suitable parent for young children. In March of 1981, the Supreme Court of the State of Alabama found this doctrine to be unconstitutional. To assess the hypothesis that this ruling had a significant effect on custodyrelated decisions, a sample of court records for divorce cases in an Alabama county was examined as representative of the state on a number of key variables. Overall, no significant differences were found on indicator variables for the comparisons before and after the ruling. There was neither an increase in custody grants to fathers nor an increase in custody requests by fathers.     

Pitfalls in state-authorized treatment of minors

Recently a federal court in Georgia ruled that several physicians and several state officials could be sued for state-authorized treatment of a minor over his father's objection. State authorization protects providers only if it is properly obtained and the authorizing official has the power to grant the authorization in the existing circumstances.     

Euthanasia: a challenge for the forensic toxicologist

People die daily in the hospital. Mostly, they die because their illnesses were no longer treatable (natural death). Unfortunately, some people die an unnatural death, in particular, as the result of euthanasia. In contrast to the situation in most countries, in the Netherlands euthanasia is accepted by the courts under strict conditions. It can be very difficult for the legal authorities to establish whether a person has died from natural causes or from suicide, euthanasia, or murder. In addition to the pathologist and the lawyer, the toxicologist also has a number of problems in showing whether euthanasia has been carried out. These can consist of the following analytical problems: (a) interactions--the patients involved have frequently been receiving a large number of toxic and nontoxic drugs simultaneously; (b) identification--not all drugs administered are included in general screening procedures; (c) metabolites--a large number of metabolites may have accumulated toward the end of a long therapeutic regimen; and (d) determination--determination of quaternary muscle relaxants and their various metabolites, as well as other drugs, can be problematic. There are also toxicokinetic problems; because of poor kidney and liver function, low serum albumen, general malaise, and interactions between these factors and other drugs, the kinetics of a given drug can differ from normal. This makes it all the more difficult to determine whether the patient died from an accumulation of medication or from a so-called "euthanetic" drug mixture.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

The gas chromatographic determination of carbophos in cadaveric material

The authors developed a method of malathion insecticide determination in the cadaveric material (blood and wall of the stomach) including extraction of 5 ml of blood (5 g of fragmented tissue of stomach wall) by hexan; preparative chromatographic purification of extract on silicagel layer L 5/40 mkm in hexan-diethyl ether system 10:2; Gas-liquid chromatographic investigation on column with 5% SE-30 and 5% XE-60 (Chromatograph "Colour-106" with thermionic detector). This method makes it possible to detect 72-76% of malathion added.