Suicidal yew poisoning--from Caesar to today--or suicide instructions on the internet

Already the Celts and ancient Germanic peoples knew about the poisonousness of the yew, which played an important part in the mythology of these civilizations. For hunting, the arrows were made poisonous with yew juice, and yew leaves were used for homicide and suicide. In modern times taxine is rarely used with suicidal intent, although this method is actually recommended on the respective Websites. After a 14-year-old boy had intensively studied poisonous plants and methods of suicide on various Websites, he cut leaves from a yew tree (taxus baccata) in his parents' garden, crushed and ingested them and died soon afterwards. At the forensic autopsy pieces of the partially crushed, partially completely preserved yew leaves were found in the stomach. The histological findings were unspecific, e.g. marked general blood congestion of the internal organs and pronounced cerebral and pulmonary edema. When the tree leaves found in the stomach were viewed under the light microscope, a stoma typical of taxus was observed; chemical-toxicological investigations revealed 3,5-dimethoxyphenol in the gastric content, which is considered a marker for the ingestion of taxus.     

The dilemmas of incrementalism: logical and political constraints in the design of health insurance reforms.

Health care reform became a premier issue on the U.S. policy agenda in the 1990s. While the comprehensive proposal put forth by President Clinton failed, states and the federal government successfully pursued a variety of lesser initiatives. This article focuses on a set of reforms intended to make private health insurance more accessible and affordable to individuals and workers in small firms. It outlines the key arguments made by experts to justify stronger regulation of health insurance and the options and difficult tradeoffs that must be considered in policy design. It then examines the scope and strength of legislation adopted by 45 states and the federal government from 1990 to 1996. The substantial variation in state policies demonstrates that even though insurance market reform was the one issue that commanded nearly universal support in the health care debate, few design features were universally accepted by those who crafted the reforms. The article concludes by assessing the pattern of state and federal action. The reforms represent some progress on nominal access to insurance but little progress on the affordability of insurance for individuals and small groups. Few of the reforms present a serious challenge to existing practices and interests of the insurance industry. This pattern of policy design reflects the logical and political constraints of incrementalism. In a system where insurance coverage is voluntary, changes to increase access for one group tend to increase costs and thereby decrease access for another segment of the population. In addition, because incremental reforms will not attract sustained attention and support from the general public, it is politically difficult to impose substantial new regulation on a powerful industry.     

衡平法外的受信义务——析董事于新《公司法》下之“忠实义务”

修订后的《中华人民共和国公司法》于2006年1月开始实施,其目的在于给投资者营造更为有利的法治环境,并进一步落实相关法律责任的追究与相关法律执行的透明度。新《公司法》将董事受信忠实的概念第一次引入到中国法中。受信概念源于普通法系中的衡平法系统,但普通法系统与衡平法系统在法学与管辖上并存之双轨制度在中国大陆法系中却不存在。本文将由此探究以单纯书面立法的方式引入衡平法中受信概念的可行性。本文认为,只要在这个概念被转化为一个法律概念前对其作出详尽的定义,受信理论的衡平法特性并不会真正阻碍其转化为我国的法律概念。为对上述观点作出阐释,文章以新《公司法》中禁止董事与公司进行自我交易这一具体规定为参照,结合案例讨论了通过对境外司法实践的借鉴、立法机关衡平法技巧的培养,以及更仔细地考察现行的国内法则,来帮助弥补单单引入一个空洞的受信概念不足的可能性。