Withholding of nutrition and fluids in the hopelessly ill patient

This article is a review of recent court cases concerned with appropriate treatment of dying or irreversibly comatose patients, specifically, withholding of nutrition and fluids. In these cases the various courts relied on the advice first found in the Hippocratic corpus and expanded on through the centuries. The statement found in the exhortation of the California Court of Appeal in Bouvia: "Provide as large a measure of dignity, respect, and comfort as possible to every patient for the remainder of his days, whatever be their number" should be our guide in caring for the infants entrusted to us.