This volume examines the development of medical liability in Germany
during its intense formative period from 1800-1945. It focuses on how
the fault requirement in civil law was conceptualised and applied to
liability for errors in the diagnosis and treatment of a patient. By
focusing on the development of the law, and how it related and responded
to changes in the nature of medicine, medical practitioners and
healthcare over this period, it uncovers a rich interaction between the
legal and medical narratives concerning fault. It offers an account of
legal development where the law and lawyers were deeply embedded in, and
influenced by, the broader social context, identifying a gradual shift
towards asserting courts' independence from the medical narrative
medical technological advances.