This volume is based on presentations at the fifth course on perinatal medicine held in the International School of Medical Sciences at the Ettore Majorana Centre for Scientific Culture in Erice, Sicily, in March 1996. It has had a prolonged gestation, but the presentations have been updated and thus the book will benefit perinatologists internationally.

The introductory lecture, by philosopher Donald Evans, is of great interest, discussing the issues which all those involved in reproductive medicine, in its widest sense, are dealing with all the time but seldom think about or put in...