ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a set of controversies dealt with by the British Medical Association and its Central Ethical Committee. The view that the clinical encounter was essentially a private, often domestic affair, occurring between people in an ongoing relationship of care and compliance, can be traced in writings about doctors’ behaviour and moral standards at least as far back as the eighteenth century. The primary issue at stake was the conflict between public pressures that urged doctors to reveal information about their patients, and the need perceived by doctors for medical secrets to be preserved in order for the medical profession to retain both its usefulness and status. Medical attitudes to such things varied widely, however, with doctors involved in public health work being keener to support such procedures, while those in private practice were more likely to object to their application to specific patients.
