Mental Illness and Public Health Care, edited by James M. Humber and Robert F. Almeder. Totowa, NJ: Humana Press; 2002. 149 pages, hardcover, $44.50.

Mental Illness and Public Health Care is the 19th installment of an ongoing series of annual biomedical ethics reviews intended broadly to review issues adjudged to be of cardinal importance in contemporary bioethics. This particular volume of the series is structured as a congeries of six, well-crafted, cutting-edge essays that draw readers' attention to a rich plenitude of contentious, unresolved issues, appertaining to mental illness and public health care. The respective essays are authored by a pantheon of academic luminaries, with professional backgrounds principally in philosophy. The musings of these intellectuals may offer intellectual, as well as practical, succor to readers searching for discerning, sensible answers to fractious issues affecting the care and treatment of persons suffering from mental illness.

Structurally, the various essays are preceded by pithy, informative "abstracts." Following the texts of the essays are a multitude of "Notes and References," which should gladden the research-minded reader. Textually, the essayists adumbrate some of the shifting frontiers of the vast expanse of mental illness by focusing on some core concerns, with further attention devoted to subsidiary questions springing from issues of primary concern. Whether or not involuntary commitment of persons with mental illness is morally defensible, for example, is one of the volume's primary focuses of attention. A proper balancing of individual privacy concerns and broader state interests in protecting the public safety, in the context of a potentially violent patient, draws further close scrutiny from some of the contributors. An economic twist to a volume otherwise devoted principally to ethical-related concerns is provided by an essayist who laments perceived, increasing subservience of psychiatric care to financial considerations, amidst the tempest of powerful economic forces (such as managed care) transmuting the nation's health care system.

The essayists of this scintillating volume, writing in an abstruse, although not pedantic, manner, provide engaging intellectual debate. They expose some of the profundity and inscrutability of various pivotal issues relating to mental illness and public health care. They carefully inject the thicket of thorny issues examined with a heavy dose of ethics. Indeed, the essays collectively propound an almost palpable sense of ethical responsibility. The bias of the contributors to view mental health care through the lens of an ethical-philosophic perspective should be especially appealing to like-minded readers.

Although this slim volume is not targeted to the lay reader, it should be illumining for the academically trained with professional interests pertinent to mental health. The volume is more noteworthy for the many questions it raises, than for the definitive answers provided. It can suitably be used for didactic purposes, as well.