"While Gandhi's obsevation that the deadliest form of violence is poverty is certainly true, the many other forms of violence are also sadly the daily business of doctors worldwide. As the former Surgeon General of the USA C Everett Koop observed: 'Violence is every bit as much a public-health issue for me and my successors in this century as smallpox, tuberculosis, and syphilis were for my predecessors in the last two centuries.'
The acceptance of violence as an important public-health problem is reflected in the increasing number of relevant publications in medical journals. To complement this body of work, we have brought together a selection of essays which, we hope, bring attention to some less frequently tackled subjects. Whether you agree or not with the arguments put forward is unimportant. For, as Bruce Harris says in his essay on the disgusting treatment of street children in Latin America: 'the biggest killer is the world's indifference.'"