J.F. Crul The topic Legal Aspects of Anaesthesia is still rarely treated in book publications, but deserves increasing attention as more cases of litigation occur each year and anaesthetists also become more aware of the legal structure within which they practice their profession. I am happy to have been able to obtain the cooperation of experts in this field from various European countries. The contributing authors in this book come from both the anaesthesia and surgery side as well as from the jurisprudential background. As these two fields have their own professional jargon we have been very careful in using definitions, avoiding that a specific term might lead to misunderstanding and confusion. The international authorship did not facilitate this task. The subject of this book was also the topic of a meeting of the European Academy of Anaesthesiology held at the French Study Center, La Suquette, Saint Vincent Ie Palue~ held three years before publication of this book. The organizers G. Barrier, J.F. Crul, and J. Lassner felt the need for a book publication presenting the state of the art of anaesthesia and the law in European countries. With the present book this plan has been realized. During the meeting many subjects were thoroughly discussed and the editor considered a number of them as very informative and therefore these were included in this book.