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A physician has an ethical duty to hold in confidence communications made to him by his patient. A legal recognition of this ethical duty is found in the concept of privilege, which is the subject of this article. January 1967 will bring to California physicians a new protection for patients' communications. The physician-patient privilege has been redefined to include confidential communications made during diagnostic evaluation, those made to non-licensed physicians, interns and medical aides, and those overheard by eavesdroppers. There has been added a psychotherapist-patient privilege designed to facilitate communications required in psychotherapy as well as in behavioral research. This paper first presents a brief historical background and discusses the protections and limitations afforded by the new California Evidence Code. There follows a section on the psychotherapist-patient privilege with the recommendation that in the context of psychotherapy, patients of physicians who are not psychiatrists should be afforded the additional benefits of the psychotherapist-patient privilege. Lastly, advice is given concerning the physician's conduct in relation to his duty to claim privilege under the new code.

A vertometer for spherical ophthalmic lenses was designed that is automated in focusing a target, in centering a lens being tested, and in marking its center within specified limits of tolerances. Light from the target is introduced into a scanning unit that detects the three-dimensional deviation of its image from a desired position and generates three signals to drive simultaneously the target and the lens so that the image of the target may come to the desired position. This procedure is followed by an automatic measurement of the deviation and marking the center, with an accuracy some five times greater than is attainable by visual examination. The working principle and experimental results are described in detail.