  An effective hadronic lagrangian consistent with the symmetries of quantum
chromodynamics and intended for applications to finite-density systems is
constructed. The degrees of freedom are (valence) nucleons, pions, and the
low-lying non-Goldstone bosons, which account for the intermediate-range
nucleon-nucleon interactions and conveniently describe the nonvanishing
expectation values of nucleon bilinears. Chiral symmetry is realized
nonlinearly, with a light scalar meson included as a chiral singlet to describe
the mid-range nucleon-nucleon attraction. The low-energy electromagnetic
structure of the nucleon is described within the theory using vector-meson
dominance, so that external form factors are not needed. The effective
lagrangian is expanded in powers of the fields and their derivatives, with the
terms organized using Georgi's ``naive dimensional analysis''. Results are
presented for finite nuclei and nuclear matter at one-baryon-loop order, using
the single-nucleon structure determined within the model. Parameters obtained
from fits to nuclear properties show that naive dimensional analysis is a
useful principle and that a truncation of the effective lagrangian at the first
few powers of the fields and their derivatives is justified.
